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Clarity Design System

Support Policies

Clarity has outlined some of its important support policies, so that consumers of Clarity can know what to expect and how to best align.

Version Support

Clarity has a release cycle where all breaking changes are batched into major releases. We follow the pattern known as Semantic Versioning (opens new window), which is a description of how we change the version number for each release of Clarity based on what types of changes it has. This helps provide consumers of Clarity a guarantee about what to expect when upgrading Clarity. The version number of Clarity has three numbers separated by dots, which are referred to as MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. For version 3.1.2, the 3 is the MAJOR value, 1 is the MINOR value, and 2 is the PATCH value.

  • A MAJOR release may contain breaking changes, new features, and bugfixes. v3.1.2
  • A MINOR release may contain a new feature, as well as bugfixes. v3.1.2
  • A PATCH release contains only bugfixes. v3.1.2

By knowing the version of Clarity that you are using, you can figure out what features are available to use. You also can see what features have been added that you are not able to use unless you update, which may provide incentive to update.

Support Policy

Our support policy for Clarity releases is to actively support a major release for 6 months after a new major release is available. For example, v4 will be supported for 6 months after its predecessor v5 is released. In cases of severe issues[1], releases may be made for out of support releases.

Version Status Released Support Ends
v6 Actively Supported May 3, 2022 6 months after v7 is released
v5 Out of support Jan 21, 2021 Ended

Accessibility Support

Clarity is tested across various accessibility testing tools as well as several sets of screen reader and browser combinations against the WCAG 2.1 spec. The testing has identified the two combinations that enable us to provide support when fixing issues related to the various assistive technologies available to users.

We have an accessibility team that reviews any accessibility issues and verifies resolutions, to hold Clarity to a high standard for accessibility. For accessibility support, please reach out to the VMware Accessibility (opens new window) team.

Footnotes:

  1. A severe issue is defined as a security issue or a regression. ↩︎