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I have a small github project, which I need to add an option to to output some version number on the commandline.

The problem is I have no idea how to "compute" the version number. Is this some random process? Should I just start at 1.0 (probably creating a tag or something), and put a number after . for fixes?

I know this question is a bit vague... I just had never to deal with this, and want to use some sane versioning scheme.


Im also interested into how to update this version number automatically, maybe using something like a git hook.

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marked as duplicate by gnat, Kilian Foth, GlenH7, Dan Pichelman, MichaelT Mar 1 at 0:18


using any CI tool? Teamcity for one, can pass and handle versioning schemes –  James Woolfenden Jun 12 '12 at 15:29
@JamesWoolfenden I'm using git, but git commits don't seem very useful (being SHAs). –  Oliver Weiler Jun 12 '12 at 16:55
You may also find the following answer useful: > programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/141973/… –  Charles Wood Feb 27 at 22:41

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up vote 4 down vote accepted

Have a look at Semantic Versioning. What constitutes a major, minor and patch version increment depends on your project, but the site is a good starting point. You might also want to include the first few digits of the git commit ID in the version, so you can find it later.

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