Guideline for developing beta features/api in main branch

[jeremymeng]

When we have preview features in main branch for a package that is not ready for GA, we need to do extra work to publish stable version of the same package. Some approaches used so far:

• release GA version from a servicing/hotfix branch that based on a commit prior to the preview feature was introduced. Sometimes this involves cherry-picking engsys fixes to pipelines etc.

• Temporarily remove or hide the preview feature, publish stable version, then add/re-surface preview feature back

• tag api with @beta release tag. Api-extractor can generate public version and beta version of type definition rollup files. We need additional work to publish package with the correct version.

We are looking for a strategy that allows us to develop, maintain, and release both GA and beta preview versions easily from main branch.

Some ideas that were brought up:

• introducing a third category of package with -plusbeta suffix, which are for GA stable features plus some @beta experimental apis. This is meant to be different from our current beta packages which are for previewing features (not marked with @beta) we are going to GA. How much different is this from our current beta packages?

[jeremymeng]

Previous related discussions

• cosmos PR Support DedicatedGatewayRequestOptions and MaxIntegratedCacheStaleness #21240 (comment)
• cosmos issue Cannot find name 'DedicatedGatewayRequestOptions' #22003
• service bus PR [ServiceBus] enable beta-trimmed api-extractor dts rollup #21872 (comment)

[github-actions]

Hi @jeremymeng, we deeply appreciate your input into this project. Regrettably, this issue has remained unresolved for over 2 years and inactive for 30 days, leading us to the decision to close it. We've implemented this policy to maintain the relevance of our issue queue and facilitate easier navigation for new contributors. If you still believe this topic requires attention, please feel free to create a new issue, referencing this one. Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support.