Tell additions from breaking changes
Adding a field breaks nothing. Renaming or removing a field, changing a date format: that’s when existing apps may fail. Only these breaking changes justify a new version.
Announce, support, retire
An old version stays available while clients migrate. The documentation states the retirement date. Logs show who still uses it.
Test the contract
Contract tests check that the API does what it promises. It’s a basic practice of our back-end & APIs offer, detailed in a good API starts with a clear contract.