GitLab Releases

GitLab has three different release types:

Monthly release: A GitLab version (XX.YY.0) that is published on the 3rd Thursday of every month, containig new features, bug fixes and performance improvements from from many successful deployments on GitLab.com. From this monthly release, patch releases are created as needed.
Patch release: Patches addressing bug and vulnerabilities per the GitLab Maintenance policy.
Internal release: Private releases reserved for delivering high-severity fixes to GitLab single-tenant SaaS instances like GitLab Dedicated within remediation SLAs.

Terminology

Maintenance policy: Describes in detail the release pace of our major, minor and patch releases for self-managed users. The major release yearly cadence was defined after an all stakeholder discussion.
Upcoming version: New GitLab release (XX.YY.0) being developed.
Maintained versions: GitLab versions covered by the maintenance policy
Backports: Bug or security fixes from a recent version applied to an older version.
Stable branches: Source of the GitLab release packages delivered to GitLab customers.
Auto-deploy: GitLab process to deploy application changes to GitLab.com
Release managers: DRI’s to deliver GitLab releases and performing deployments to GitLab.com

If you’re a GitLab engineer looking:

To include a bug fix in a patch release, please follow the steps on the patch release runbook for GitLab engineers.
To include a security fix in a patch release, please follow the steps on the security runbook for GitLab engineers.

If you’re a GitLab engineer looking to fix a high-severity via an internal release, please follow the steps on the internal release runbook for GitLab engineers.