How Twine Manages Story Format Versions

Generally, how Twine manages multiple versions of a story format isn't something most users need to be concerned with. But it can affect people who are developing story formats or those using an older version of a story format.

Twine expects story formats to follow semantic versioning. Semantic versioning assigns meanings to a series of three numbers separated by periods. What this means in the context of a story format is that:

• The first number increases when the story format changes in any way that's not compatible with existing stories that use it.
• The second number increases when the story format adds features in a way that is compatible with existing stories.
• The third number increases when the story format fixes bugs in a way that is compatible with existing stories.

This has two effects that take place every time you start a session with Twine, either by opening the application or visiting the online version.

• Twine removes versions of story formats that it considers outdated. That is, if both versions 2.1.0 and 2.0.0 of a format exist, it removes 2.0.0. If 3.0.0, 2.1.0, and 2.0.0 exist, it removes only 2.0.0.
• Twine upgrades stories to the most up-to-date version of a story format that does not contain breaking changes. If a story uses version 2.0.0 of a format and 2.1.0 exists, it will change the story to use 2.1.0. If it uses 2.0.0 and both 3.0.0 and 2.1.0 exist, it will only upgrade the story to version 2.1.0. Changing the story from version 2.1.0 to 3.0.0 must be done manually.

Twine does both of these things to lessen the impact of story format updates, so that as upgrades are available, you don't need to take any action to be up-to-date. It's not possible to change or override this behavior.