How should I bump my app version while still in initial developments using SemVer?

Question

Following the SemVer guidelines with x.y.z, I know I should start my developments with version 0.1.0 and do the following in case of:

• Breaking change: increment y instead of x (which shall remain to 0 until the first production release).
• Feature: ???
• Patch: increment z.

As the question marks suggest, should I increment y or z when adding a new feature to my unreleased app?

Answer 1

The SemVer specification gives these instructions:

1. Patch version Z (x.y.Z | x > 0) MUST be incremented if only backwards compatible bug fixes are introduced. [...]
2. Minor version Y (x.Y.z | x > 0) MUST be incremented if new, backwards compatible functionality is introduced to the public API. [...]
3. Major version X (X.y.z | X > 0) MUST be incremented if any backwards incompatible changes are introduced to the public API. [...]

So basically, Z is incremented for fixes, Y is incremented for features, X is incremented for breaking changes whether they're about features or fixes.

---

While in the initial developments phase, we just don't deal with the breaking change part because we have no production users. Therefore, we should increment Z for fixes, and Y for features, no matter if the changes are backwards compatible or not.