Language & Framework Version Support Policy for OpenFGA Tooling

[rhamzeh]

Hey everyone!

This post is a long time coming. While folks have probably noticed when using our Go-based repos (e.g., OpenFGA core server, CLI and Go SDK), we follow upstream's support policy. For example, in Go's case, it's the last major release (N) plus the previous one (N-1) as per Go's support policy.

While this was implicit, we want to be more explicit—both for Go and the rest of our tooling and packages. This is especially important as maintaining compatibility with old language versions has hindered us in some ecosystems, forcing us to spend time fighting dependencies that no longer work on outdated runtimes.

What's Changing

Rollout Plan

• We will gradually roll out this policy and formalize it in each repo
• We will update our testing frameworks to ensure we're testing against all major supported versions (e.g., JS SDK must test against Node.js 20, 22, and 24)
• We will gradually drop support for older EOL'd runtimes (e.g., JS SDK will drop testing for Node.js 16 and 18)

Repos In Scope

This policy currently applies to:

• https://github.com/openfga/cli
• https://github.com/openfga/language (all three variants: JS, Go, and Java)
• https://github.com/openfga/js-sdk
• https://github.com/openfga/go-sdk
• https://github.com/openfga/dotnet-sdk
• https://github.com/openfga/python-sdk
• https://github.com/openfga/java-sdk
• https://github.com/openfga/frontend-utils
• https://github.com/openfga/spring-boot-starter

We will expand this policy to other repos in the future.

Language and Framework Support Policy

We follow the official vendor/community support policies for each language, with specific exceptions for Node.js and .NET around best-effort support.

Support Matrix

Language	Policy Source	Supported Versions	EOL Reference	Notes
Go	Go Release Policy	The two most recent major releases	https://endoflife.date/go
Node.js	Node.js Previous Releases	All versions currently in LTS or Maintenance mode	https://endoflife.date/nodejs	Best-effort support for EOL versions*
Java	Oracle JDK Java SE Premier Support	Versions in Premier support (currently JDK 17, 21 and 25)	https://endoflife.date/oracle-jdk	Spring Boot Starter has additional requirements*
Python	Python Developer's Guide	Versions in Security Fix or Bug Fix phase	https://endoflife.date/python
.NET	.NET Support Policy	Versions in LTS or Current status, plus .NET Standard 2.0	https://endoflife.date/dotnet	.NET Standard 2.0 on best-effort basis*

Language-Specific Notes

Node.js:
We will make a best effort to maintain compatibility with Node.js versions that have reached End-of-Life (EOL), but we will not test against them in our CI/CD pipelines. This means you may be able to use our JS SDKs with older versions of Node.js, but you may not be able to run tests (because many of our testing dependencies have dropped support for EOL versions).

Long-term plan: This best-effort support will not continue indefinitely. We plan to modernize our JS SDK, adopt more functionality now native to the language, and add support for alternate runtimes such as Deno, Cloudflare Workers, and Vercel Edge.

Spring Boot Starter:
In addition to following Oracle's Java support policy, we will only support Java versions that are supported by Spring Boot itself.

.NET:
While we support .NET Standard 2.0, it is on a best-effort basis only. When this SDK is used within an unmaintained EOL framework (e.g., .NET Core 3.1 or .NET Framework 4.6.1), no support is guaranteed. We will primarily test against currently supported .NET runtimes.

What Happens When a Language Version Reaches EOL

When a language version reaches its End-of-Life date:

1. We will announce the change in release notes (no advance notice required)
2. The version will be marked as "Best Effort" support in SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md in the relevant repo
3. The version will be removed from our CI/CD testing matrix
4. We may continue to avoid using features that would break compatibility, but this is not guaranteed

Important

Dropping official support for an EOL version does NOT require a major version bump of the SDK.

Implementation Plan by Language

Go

Repos: cli, go-sdk, language (pkg/go)

Action Items:

• Continue declaring N-1 in go.mod and the latest version in toolchain
• Add a CI step for testing the N-1 version of Go
• Add a SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md document detailing this policy and link to it from the README

Node.js / JavaScript

Repos: js-sdk, frontend-utils, language (pkg/js)

Action Items:

• Declare minimum supported engine version in package.json (for now we will keep it at 18)
• Drop unsupported versions (Node.js 16 and 18) from CI
• Add CI steps for testing all major supported versions (Node.js 20, 22, 24)
• Add a SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md document detailing this policy and link to it from the README

.NET

Repos: dotnet-sdk

Action Items:

• Update CI to test against .NET 10.0
• Update the existing SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md to include .NET 10.0

Java

Repos: java-sdk, spring-boot-starter, language (pkg/java)

Action Items:

• java-sdk: We have already dropped support for Java 11 in this PR (unreleased). We will document this in the changelog before releasing.
• All Java repos:
  • Drop support for Java 11 and document in the changelog
  • Update CI workflows to remove Java 11 and 20, and add Java 21 and 25
  • Add a SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md document detailing this policy and link to it from the README

Python

Repos: python-sdk

Action Items:

• Add CI tests for Python 3.13 and 3.14
• Add a SUPPORTED_FRAMEWORKS.md document detailing this policy and link to it from the README

Timeline

Expect these changes to be formalized and implemented over the next couple of weeks.

We Want Your Feedback

Please let us know your thoughts. If you expect this will cause you disruption, please let us know as soon as possible so we can discuss your use case.