The whole of Horizon is in beta, so the channel that installs every build as
soon as it is built is called Alpha; Stable keeps its name. The launcher's
Settings, the update-channel command, the MCP tool, the release notes footer
and the docs say Alpha. update_channel is saved as "alpha"; "nightly" and the
old beta_builds switch still read as Alpha.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The daily promotion moves to 20:00 UTC (21:00 in Paris in winter time):
PROMOTE_AT and promote.yml's cron (20:07, retries until 21:37), with the docs
that give the time. A launcher left open on Nightly looks for new releases
every 30 minutes; Stable keeps 4 hours. The launcher README's Settings
screenshot shows the Updates choice.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The launcher's "Beta builds" switch becomes an Updates choice of two channels,
stored as "update_channel": "stable" | "nightly" (an old "beta_builds": true
reads as nightly). The CLI (update-channel) and MCP (update_channel) show and
set it, and list each release's channel as stable or nightly.
Nightly ships constantly: the release train waits 5 minutes for a merge wave to
settle (20 at most) instead of 15 (an hour). Stable moves once a day:
promote.yml runs at 19:00 UTC (retries until 20:37) and promotes the newest beta
that had been out 6 hours by 19:00, so late runs and retries pick the same one.
The stalled-promotion issue waits 30 hours. Release notes, docs, the website's
install and FAQ pages say Stable and Nightly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludovic decided (2026-10-21) that the next release is 0.2 for both the game and the launcher, with one
clear scheme instead of vYYYY.MM.DD(.N) and launcher-vX.Y.Z. This page is the design the other 0.2
pull requests implement:
- tags vX.Y.Z and launcher@X.Y.Z (launcher-v0.2.0 is taken), on a line in .github/release-line.txt;
betas stay pre-releases under their final tag; semver pre-release tags reserved for previews;
- one order for every reader: each 0.2 tag above every tag from before;
- how release.yml, launcher.yml and promote.yml map onto it (HORIZON_VERSION, HORIZON_LAUNCHER_TAG);
- what launchers and servers from before 0.2 do with it, and the bridges that move them
(launcher-v0.17.0, the last dated game release made latest before v0.2.0);
- the orchestrator's steps for the day Ludovic says go, freeze off included.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ludovic Marie