bumpversion

What it is and what it does

bumpversion is a command-line tool for automating version increments across your codebase. It reads the current version from your configuration or command line, increments the part you specify (major, minor, patch, or custom), and updates all occurrences in your source files. It can optionally create a commit and tag in Git or Mercurial with a templated message.

The tool is language-agnostic—it works on any text file—and supports highly configurable version formats via regex parsing and serialization rules. You can define custom version parts (e.g., alpha, beta, release names) and control which files get updated. However, the project is abandoned and its maintainers recommend using the maintained fork bump2version instead.

Use it for:

• Automate version bumps in CI/CD pipelines before building and releasing software packages.
• Keep version strings synchronized across setup.py, package.json, version files, and documentation in a single command.
• Create consistent Git tags and commit messages when releasing new versions of a project.
• Manage complex versioning schemes with custom parts (e.g., alpha/beta/release stages) across multiple files.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

A command-line tool that automates version bumping by updating version strings across multiple files, creating commits and tags in Git or Mercurial.

No. The project is abandoned (last release 2020-05-14, Development Status :: 7 - Inactive). The maintainers explicitly recommend installing the maintained fork bump2version instead. If you need version bumping automation, use bump2version or another actively maintained alternative.

Install

bumpversion on PyPI

pip install bumpversion

uv add bumpversion

poetry add bumpversion

Installing bumpversion

Before you install

Installation is straightforward with low friction, but the project is abandoned as of 2020-05-14. The maintainers explicitly recommend installing a maintained fork (bump2version) instead. The last commit was 2023-07-14, but this appears to be repository metadata only, not active development.

License in practice

MIT license is permissive and poses no restrictions on use, modification, or distribution in commercial or private projects.

Quickstart

pip install bumpversion
bumpversion --current-version 0.5.1 minor src/VERSION

Requires Git or Mercurial to be installed for commit and tag functionality; works with text files only and is language-agnostic.

Verify before relying

• Whether the package remains compatible with modern Python versions beyond those listed (3.2–3.4 are quite old).
• Current state of the fork (bump2version) and whether it is truly the recommended replacement.
• Whether the package's configuration file parsing works reliably with contemporary .bumpversion.cfg formats.

Package facts

Evidence: bumpversion-0.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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