Open source projects come in all shapes and sizes, and Twitter’s projects are no exception. Sometimes we publish projects that are highly experimental or are in very early stages of development. Other times we publish some of the core infrastructure that is used to serve hundreds of millions of tweets every day.
These project status labels, which you’ll find attached to various Twitter projects, are designed to help indicate how stable a project is and where it is in its development lifecycle. These are neither statements of value nor guarantees of support or future development. They are merely designed to provide transparency.
Questions about the status of individual projects are generally best directed to the project discussion forum or issue tracker. If those are unavailable, you can also email opensource@twitter.com.
Project Statuses:
Idea
Expectations
This code is in the scoping or specification phase and may be accepting feedback or proposals. May not have active maintainers.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Typically hosted in the Twitter Incubator GitHub org
- (Optional) Issues at the project owner’s discretion
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#idea)
Experimental
Expectations
This code is not yet ready for prime time and may be actively seeking feedback. May not have active maintainers.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Typically hosted in the Twitter Incubator GitHub org
- (Optional) Issues at the project owner’s discretion
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#experimental)
Active
Expectations
This code is actively maintained and supported.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Is maintained by a Twitter engineering team
- Issues and PR’s managed in GitHub
- For additional details on support options, see the Open Source Support Policy
- An automated release pipeline
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#active)
Stable
Expectations
This code is stable and not necessarily open to new features or functionality. Is actively maintained and supported.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Is maintained by a Twitter engineering team
- Issues and PR’s managed in GitHub
- For additional details on support options, see the Open Source Support Policy
- An automated release pipeline
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#stable)
Unmaintained
Expectations
This code is no longer actively maintained nor supported. Possibly actively searching for another maintainer inside or outside of Twitter.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Previous references to Support should be modified or removed from the README
- May be transitioned to new maintainers
- (Optional) Issues and PR’s at the project owner’s discretion
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#unmaintained)
Deprecated
Expectations
This code has been identified to transition to RETIRED at some point in the future. No longer supported and possibly has no active maintainers.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Previous references to Support should be modified or removed from the README
- Will be transitioned to RETIRED in the future
- (Optional) Issues and PR’s at the project owner’s discretion
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#deprecated)
Retired
Expectations
This code is read-only. There is neither a maintainer nor any support.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- Previous references to Support should be modified or removed from the README
- Project is read-only and available for cloning only
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#retired)
Static
Expectations
This code is not expected to be updated after publication. Most often, this is code published alongside a research paper, a blog post, or for demonstration purposes.
Requirements
- Complies with Twitter’s legal and security requirements for open source software
- Contains the appropriate Twitter open source category header in the repository’s README file
- (Optional) Issues at the project owner’s discretion
- (Optional) Project may be archived as read-only and only available for cloning
Markdown
[](https://opensource.twitter.dev/status/#static)
Thanks to repostatus.org and New Relic for the inspiration, and shields.io for the badges.