Add versioning policy.

Addresses (does not fix) sigstore#2518.

This follows [Proposal: Cosign Versioning][versioning-proposal], which in turn
follows sigstore#2365.

After getting approval on this PR, I will update sigstore#2518 to include a checklist
containing the following (possibly linking to separate bugs):

- [ ] (docs) Communicate the new version policy to Cosign users.
- [ ] (process/CI) Separate CLI and API releases (with different tagging schemes).
- [ ] (process/CI) Use gorelease or similar to catch breaking API changes.
- [ ] (code) Add library support for deprecations (see also sigstore#2510)
- [ ] (testing) E2E testing for old Cosign versions (Also client libraries, once they're stable).

[versioning-proposal]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1urWUPhtzXKWqL9CoaEw4Z35v5IDl9yrTRQ40XlYekOo/edit#

Signed-off-by: Zachary Newman <[email protected]>

CLI.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+# Cosign CLI Conventions
+
+* The *primary* output of any command should be to STDOUT. The format should be
+  described in the documentation of each command.
+* Output to STDERR is informational only.

VERSIONING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,197 @@
+# Cosign Versioning Policy
+
+This is the versioning policy regarding the stability of Cosign, both the API and CLI.
+
+**tl;dr (CLI):** semver for specific behaviors, but with deprecations.
+
+**tl;dr (API):** no guarantees at all (for now).
+
+Principles:
+
+- Provide well-versioned, very reliable things that people can write
+  scripts/code against.
+- Provide places for experimentation and rapid-development, not covered under
+  versioning guarantees.
+- Be explicit about what is and isn’t covered.
+- Better to promise a weaker guarantee and stick to it consistently than to be
+  vague about what is/isn’t covered and technically comply, or not comply at
+  all.
+
+## Cosign CLI
+
+The Cosign CLI’s version numbers are of the form `MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH`, but it is
+explicitly not covered by [semantic versioning][] guarantees. Instead, you
+should interpret version numbers as follows:
+
+**Major version increases.** These are "large changes:" you should expect to
+need to rewrite scripts after these. There are no compatibility guarantees about
+the behavior or shape of the CLI. These should be infrequent and correspond to
+big improvements in the user experience.
+
+**Minor version increases.** These are "small changes:" if you’ve been paying
+attention to and fixing deprecation warnings (see "Deprecation"), your scripts
+should continue to work (provided they only depend on explicitly guaranteed
+Cosign behavior; see "What's covered?").
+
+**Patch version increases.** These are "bug fix" releases only.
+
+[semver]: https://semver.org
+
+### What's covered?
+
+Only behavior explicitly listed here is covered (to counter [Hyrum's
+Law][hyrums-law]).
+
+* Any documented behavior (i.e., behavior described in the output of `cosign -h`).
+  If the wording was ambiguous, the behavior may change as long as the
+  corresponding documentation changes to make it less ambiguous.
+* Output to standard output, *when described in the documentation*. Each command
+  should describe its default output format (ideally with examples).
+  * Any scripts should *only* rely on standard output.
+  * Consumers using compliant parsers will continue to be able parse the output of Cosign.
+  * New fields may be added, but fields will not be removed.
+* Additional conventions documented in [CLI.md]().
+
+What’s *not* covered?
+
+* Output to standard error is *not* covered and may change at any time.
+* If the Sigstore API changes, the output of Cosign may change.
+* Fixes to security bugs (for instance, something invalid used to pass
+  verification, but now it does not). However, "security features" should not
+  break backwards-compatibility.
+* Any "unstable" commands.
+
+Violations of this are generally considered bugs; we will issue patch releases
+for each affected minor version. In some (rare) cases, an exception may be made
+with the approval of the Cosign maintainers as long as the decision results in
+an update to this versioning policy.
+
+[hyrums-law]: https://www.hyrumslaw.com/
+
+### Unstable commands
+
+It’s important to enable rapid iteration on the development of new Cosign
+features while providing stability to users of more-mature features. As such,
+the Cosign CLI will support the following release levels with corresponding
+guarantees:
+
+* **Experimental**: No guarantees. May change in a backwards-incompatible way or
+  be removed at any time without warning.
+* Generally available (**GA**): follows the guidelines in this document.
+
+Users must explicitly indicate that they want to opt-in to experimental behavior
+by setting the environment variable `COSIGN_EXPERIMENTAL=1`.
+
+### Supported versions
+
+**Full support.** We fully support only the latest release of the Cosign CLI.
+
+**Security support.** We will backport security fixes to all major versions
+released in the past year. We may backport security fixes, depending on
+severity, to all minor versions released in the last year. We may choose to
+backport security "features" as well.
+
+### Deprecation
+
+Any behavior may be deprecated at any time with sufficient warning. For GA
+features, that period is 6 months from the Cosign release in which the
+deprecation was first announced; the first subsequent Cosign release should
+remove that feature. A new major version voids all deprecation timeline
+guarantees, and any deprecated behaviors can be removed at that time.
+
+Deprecation requires:
+
+* When users invoke the deprecated behavior, print a deprecation message to
+  standard error.
+  * The message should look something like:
+    > WARNING: $BEHAVIOR is deprecated and will be removed in a Cosign release
+    > soon after $DEPRECATION_DATE (see $GITHUB_ISSUE_LINK). Instead, please
+    > $ALTERNATIVE.
+  * If we can’t tell whether a user is using the deprecated behavior (for
+    instance, if we’re going to remove a field), print the message every time.
+  * There MAY be a way to turn off the message. In many cases, this will just be
+    by using the alternative. Otherwise, we can consider adding a flag (which is
+    now subject to a deprecation period of its own).
+* A release note at the introduction of the deprecation, along with the removal
+  of the behavior.
+* Any documentation that refers to the deprecated behavior in the Cosign
+  repository should have the same information as in the message.
+  * Other documentation will be updated on a best-effort basis.
+
+For a list of currently deprecated behavior, search the codebase.
+
+### Rationale/background
+
+Currently, many folks assume that the Cosign CLI follows semantic versioning. We
+have a bunch of breaking changes blocked on a 2.0 release. Even after that
+point, there are a number of proposed breaking changes/overhauls proposed. But
+there’s hesitancy to publish another major version. Further, semver doesn’t lend
+itself to a regular deprecation train (marking things deprecated, then ripping
+out after a fixed period of time); rather, in semver, you always have to wait
+for a new major version, which batches together a bunch of proposed deprecated
+behavior.
+
+Approaches considered include:
+
+* Follow semver. Bump major versions frequently (this is why Chrome is at
+  version 107 and Firefox is at 106, and gcloud is at version 409). I think this
+  is actually way more user-hostile; it effectively means "there are no
+  compatibility guarantees."
+* Follow semver. Avoid major version releases. I think that Sigstore and Cosign
+  are developing too rapidly to commit to avoid breaking things. Further, this
+  winds up preventing incremental improvements to the CLI in favor of huge
+  changes. For instance, right now with the v2 work underway the codebase is in
+  an awkward spot and would take a fair bit of work/branch management to push a
+  minor version release; realistically, the next release will be v2 even if we
+  have bug fixes we could push before then.
+
+## API support for old Cosign versions
+
+Starting with Cosign CLI v2, the Sigstore infrastructure should support old
+Cosign versions for one year past release, and six months past the availability
+of a suitable replacement. Any breakage here will be considered a bug and should
+be rolled back or fixed.
+
+We will run end-to-end tests for all prior supported minor versions.
+
+## Cosign API
+
+The Cosign API is versioned independently of the Cosign CLI. Version numbers are
+`MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH`. For now, there are **no stability guarantees**:
+
+* The library will undergo a serious refactor to make using it much
+  safer/easier.
+* Most callers (anybody not dealing with OCI registries/containers) will want
+  [sigstore-go][] instead.
+* At a future major version, the library will follow semantic versioning (and
+  this policy will be updated).
+* After that point, only code in pkg/ will be covered by semver; Cosign will
+  follow semver strictly.
+  * Most functionality will be in `internal/` or `cmd/` by default, and exposing it
+    publicly will be a deliberate choice.
+  * In-development features will live under a new `pkg/experimental/` directory,
+    which will not be covered by semver.
+  * Updating a library is safer than updating a CLI tool, so we will bump major
+    versions liberally (though not excessively).
+
+### Rationale/background
+
+We are not currently maintaining the Cosign API as if it’s a 1.0 library. There
+are breaking changes all the time, and contributors don’t even seem to notice
+(users might, but they haven’t complained much)! So effectively it's got no
+versioning policy as-is; this just makes that official.
+
+The only reason it’s marked 1.0 is because the CLI was marked 1.0; it certainly
+isn’t ready for semver guarantees ([which Golang requires][go-semver]). Also, it
+doesn’t make sense to tie the versions of the API and CLI to each other. If I
+wanted to do a big refactor of the API that didn't affect the CLI, that might
+require a major version bump even if the CLI was entirely unchanged.
+
+Soon, [sigstore-go][] will be the default Golang API for Sigstore; this library
+will have a well-thought-out API and be stable. After that point, we can
+refactor Cosign to use it (see [Sigstore in Golang][sigstore-in-golang]) and
+then clean up the Cosign API for those who need OCI support.
+
+[go-semver]: https://go.dev/doc/modules/release-workflow#breaking
+[sigstore-go]: https://github.com/sigstore/sigstore-go
+[sigstore-in-golang]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aZfk1TlzcuaO0uz76M9D26-gAvoZLn0oCAKvkbuhcPM/edit