S2 GA release plan and S1 future support plan

[GarthDB]

Problem statement

At some point in the future, Spectrum 2 data will be published as Spectrum Tokens v13.0.0, as discussed in this other RFC. At that time, the data currently in the main branch, released as Spectrum Tokens v12.x.x, won't have any planned releases with feature updates. However, it is expected that some platforms, implementations, and products won't be able to switch over to Spectrum Tokens v13 immediately. This RFC is designed to discuss the plans for supporting S1 for those products after S2 graduates from beta.

History

Previous related RFCs:

• Spectrum, S2, S2-foundations updated merge plan
• Spectrum Tokens 12.x.x to Spectrum 2 migration proposal

Proposal

What will and won't be included in the S2 GA release?

Included:

• The current contents of beta branch

Not included:

• Composite tokens for drop shadows
• Adobe Clean VF and subsequent layout adjustments
• Updating dist directory format output
• Updating to Style Dictionary v4

These changes would result in breaking changes to the token output format and work to update the implementation parsers. It's planned to be completed using RFCs, snapshot/beta releases for partner vetting after S2 GA is released.

What types of changes should be expected, and who decides?

1. Typos, bugs, or small patches can be released without much coordination. The Spectrum Tooling Engineering Team can drive that work with minimal coordination with the Spectrum Design Team.
2. The Spectrum Design Team will coordinate/drive any other changes, but the Spectrum Tooling Engineering Team will most likely make the actual changes and releases from this repo.
3. No plans for new features for S1 once S2 is released to main/latest.
4. No architectural changes would be made to the S1 data, such as the JSON Schema.

How will releases be made?

We can keep an s1-legacy branch with the last of the S1 release's data that can be used for any releases needed. It would be expected to be released under the v12 version number.

Even if we don't have a branch with the s1 data, we can still checkout the git tag from the last v12.x.x release and provide the release that way.

Consequences or Required Actions

Any product still using an S1 version won't receive any new component or system features.

Unresolved questions

• If the Spectrum Design Team determines an S1 release is recommended, would they also update their design assets to match the design data updates?

Timeline

We'll keep this RFC open for comment until Friday, March 7, 2025.

We are planning to graduate from the beta branch to the main branch as described above on Thursday, March 13, 2025.