SlateDB follows Semantic Versioning and guarantees forward and backward compatibility for storage formats between adjacent releases. We do not currently guarantee compile-time API compatibility.

Shared deployments should move one release at a time. If several processes read and write the same database path, keep them within one release step of each other until the rollout is complete.

Stored Data#

A single database can contain a mix of older and newer SST files during normal operation. Readers and compactors must understand every format already present in the bucket. SlateDB version-checks its persistent formats and fails fast when it sees a version it does not understand.

Compression is part of compatibility too. A process can only read compressed SSTs for codecs that were compiled into that binary. If one deployment writes Zstd-compressed SSTs, every reader and compactor that touches that database needs the zstd feature enabled. Compression covers the codec feature flags.