Rule Stability and Semver Policy¶

This document defines how built-in rules evolve over time so that users can rely on Azure Functions Doctor in both local and CI workflows.

Rule States¶

Every built-in rule has one of three stability states:

State	Meaning
Stable	Fully supported. False positives are treated as bugs.
Experimental	Under evaluation. May change behavior or be removed in a minor release. False positives are documented as known limitations.
Deprecated	Scheduled for removal. Announced in the changelog and removed in the next major release.

All 15 current built-in rules are stable.

Experimental to Stable: Requires test coverage and at least one minor release cycle without breaking changes.
Stable to Deprecated: Announced in the changelog. The rule continues to run until the next major release.
Deprecated to Removed: Occurs only in a major release.

Change	Version Bump
Add an optional rule to the `full` profile	Minor
Add a required rule to the `minimal` profile	Major (breaking)
Change the meaning of a required rule	Major (breaking)
Change the meaning of an optional rule	Minor
Remove a deprecated rule	Major
Fix a false positive in a stable rule	Patch
Add an experimental rule	Minor
Change or remove an experimental rule	Minor

The minimal profile runs only rules marked required: true. Because CI pipelines depend on minimal producing a stable, predictable set of checks:

Adding a rule to minimal (marking it required: true) is a breaking change and requires a major version bump.
Adding optional rules to full is a minor change.
Removing an optional rule from full follows the deprecation path above.

Stable rules: False positives are bugs. They are fixed in patch releases.
Experimental rules: False positives are documented as known limitations in the rule description or changelog.
Deprecated rules: False positives are not fixed; users should migrate away.

All 15 rules in v2.json are stable. See the Rule Inventory for the complete list.