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Request for next or latest-alpha alias to match Current / Alpha #25

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Description

@MikeMcC399

This is related to #23 which suggests that the latest alias be documented as

latest: pointing to the release with the highest non-prerelease semver, any line except Alpha phase

In this case there is no alias available that points to the highest semver including Alpha releases.

Suggestion

Add an alias such as next that points to the highest semver, including Alpha releases. next is commonly used as a tag in the npm registry to denote a pre-release version.

During an Alpha phase this would be the Alpha release, and at the end of the Alpha release, this would transition to the same release line in its Current phase.

For example, at the moment, that would mean:

Node.js Phase Status Alias
v27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0 Alpha highest semver next (suggestion)
v26.13.0 Active LTS highest non-prerelease semver latest

On 2027-04-22 that would converge to:

Node.js Phase Status Alias
v27.0.0 Current highest semver next (suggestion)
v27.0.0 Current highest non-prerelease semver latest

latest-alpha would also be a possibility that speaks to its contents. In that case, it would have to exclude the current release and only be used for alpha releases.

Activity

  1. changed the title [-]Request for `next` alias to match Current / Alpha[/-] [+]Request for `next` or `latest-alpha` alias to match Current / Alpha[/+] on Nov 11, 2026
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