Versions & deprecation
Pin an explicit date revision. Keep contract maturity separate from runtime readiness.
Explicit negotiation
Send smokestack-api-version with the revision selected in the reference. Examples and downloadable OpenAPI files are pinned to that revision. Operations introduced later are not included in earlier reference pages or downloads.
Plan upgrades deliberately
Use the contract revision index to compare available operations. Validate request and response handling against the new revision before changing a production integration. Do not treat the newest revision as an automatic runtime default.
Deprecation requires committed metadata
A deprecation label must come from the public contract together with its migration guidance; the portal does not invent sunset dates. Missing runtime status is not deprecation, and an enabled source contract is not a live-service guarantee.