Version updates for Jetpack

By default, the current version of Jetpack plugin is automatically made available to all WordPress sites via VIP MU plugins.

The production and staging branches of VIP MU plugins are updated with the latest version of Jetpack on the Thursday subsequent to a Jetpack release. Details about the Jetpack release and advance notice for the scheduled version update on the VIP Platform are posted in the VIP Lobby.

An upcoming version of Jetpack will be made available on the staging branch of VIP MU plugins where it can be tested on non-production environments. The staging branch of VIP MU plugins can be configured to deploy to a non-production environment in the Software Versions panel of the VIP Dashboard.

As Jetpack code constitutes a significant proportion of a VIP Platform site, it is recommended that functionality particular to a site is tested against betas and release candidates of Jetpack as soon as they become available.

Automattic tests Jetpack releases against a diverse range of environments and sites to assess performance with various levels of data and traffic.

Limitations

• Not all versions of WordPress are compatible with the latest available version of Jetpack. The version of WordPress that a specific version of Jetpack requires is listed in the readme.txt file of the Jetpack plugin.
• Applications that are set to use a version of WordPress which is incompatible with the latest version of Jetpack will have the latest compatible version of Jetpack loaded.
• Pinning a particular version of Jetpack will override version compatibility settings.
• The WP-CLI command wp plugins list will display the latest version of Jetpack available on an application, no matter which version of Jetpack is enabled. The WP-CLI command wp jetpack status will display the version of Jetpack that is currently activated.

Version support policy

VIP supports the current version of Jetpack, and for sites with a pinned version—only one major version behind.  

For example, if the current version of Jetpack is 13.2, the WordPress VIP Platform will support 13.2 as well as v.13.1.*. All versions of Jetpack previous to v.13.1. will be removed from VIP MU plugins. If a site has been pinned to a Jetpack version that does not exist in the VIP MU plugins directory, the default (current) version of Jetpack will be loaded instead.

Pinning to a version

Sites can be pinned to a specific version of Jetpack by defining the VIP_JETPACK_PINNED_VERSION constant with the desired version number of Jetpack in the application’s vip-config.php file.

define( 'VIP_JETPACK_PINNED_VERSION', 'X.Y');

Sites can only be pinned to major (X.Y) versions. To test version 14.0-beta, use 14.0 in the constant. When 14.0 is released, it will be updated automatically. Point releases containing security patches and/or bug fixes will automatically be applied to each version.

Add a separate test version of Jetpack to client-mu-plugins

A non-production site can load its own version of Jetpack by committing it to client-mu-plugins/jetpack in the repository branch that deploys to that environment. 

Step 1: Add the test version of Jetpack to the repository

Beta versions of Jetpack can be downloaded from the Jetpack page on the WordPress.org plugins repository.

1. Scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Under “PREVIOUS VERSIONS”, locate the desired beta version from the select box dropdown, and select “Download“. 

In a locally cloned and checked out version of the environment’s deploying branch:

1. If a jetpack directory already exists in client-mu-plugins, delete it before adding the new downloaded version.
2. Commit the version of Jetpack to be tested to the deploying branch of the environment’s GitHub repository.
3. Add the Jetpack plugin directory within the client-mu-plugins directory. Updates do not need to be made to  /client-mu-plugins/plugin-loader.php file to reference the file.
4. Commit the above changes.

Step 2: Load the test version of Jetpack on the environment

Define the WPCOM_VIP_JETPACK_LOCAL constant as true in vip-config.php to load the test version of Jetpack from the client-mu-plugins directory. Make this change in a separate commit to avoid conflicts/fatals.

define( 'WPCOM_VIP_JETPACK_LOCAL', true );

The custom function in this code example prevents the test version of Jetpack from loading on a production site:

$disallowed_jetpack_test_envs = array(
    'production',
);
if ( ! in_array( VIP_GO_APP_ENVIRONMENT, $disallowed_jetpack_test_envs, true ) ) {
    define( 'WPCOM_VIP_JETPACK_LOCAL', true );
}