info_tfgrid/collections/manual/knowledge_base/collaboration/development_cycle.md

The development cycle is explained below:

Devnet:

• continuous development for active version
• can be reset
• should be against a branch named with the version being developed (example: 10.2.3)

Nextnet:

• for parallel version development
• oftentimes, the next major version while development has bugfixes
• should be against a branch named with the version being developed (example: 10.3.1)

QAnet:

• once development is complete, each component is tagged with an rc (example: 10.2.3-rc1) and the new version to be tested is deployed on QAnet
• this net is for INTERNAL QA
• Here, we expect most bugs to be reported
• Once QA signs off, it moves to testnet

Testnet:

• tag as beta release (example: 10.2.3-rc3-beta)
• This is for the community and stability testing
• should be almost completely stable

Mainnet:

• if testnet has no blockers for 2 weeks, community votes to move to mainnet
• everything is merged to main
• final release is tagged (example: 10.2.3)

GOAL:

moving away from that model to be able to use ephermal environments instead of maintaining such environments, but now they're available for simplicity