Most Protobuf users should ignore Editions and continue using proto3. If you become an early adopter, we’ve been working closely with Google to ensu

Protobuf Editions are here: don’t panic

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2024-05-09 21:00:03

Most Protobuf users should ignore Editions and continue using proto3. If you become an early adopter, we’ve been working closely with Google to ensure that Buf will support editions as soon as they’re generally available.

Protobuf Editions will become generally available with the release of protoc 27.0. This introduces an alternative approach to syntax-based schema semantics choices and relies more heavily on finer-grained file, message, or field-level options to opt into or out of Protobuf language features on a case-by-case basis.

Edition 2023 unifies proto2 and proto3 functionality and semantics. The unification comes with sane and backward-compatible defaults, but users can control how their existing projects adopt it.

Using Editions won't alter or modify any existing wire formats or encodings. It’s meant to aid plugin maintainers by providing an integrated feature flag system that generated APIs and runtimes may rely on.

We recommend sticking with proto3 for the foreseeable future and holding off on adopting Editions early. Before making the switch, give the support lifetimes for Editions and the migration plans some time to develop and mature.