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Author SHA1 Message Date
Niels Lohmann 00c1c0e274 Add a roadmap page to the documentation
Describe what the project will and will not do over the next year,
and point to issue #3453 for the open question of a 4.0 release.

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
2026-09-24 17:31:58 +02:00
3 changed files with 45 additions and 0 deletions
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- [Contribution Guidelines](contribution_guidelines.md) - guidelines how to contribute to this project
- [Governance](governance.md) - the governance model of this project
- [Quality Assurance](quality_assurance.md) - how the quality of this project is assured
- [Roadmap](roadmap.md) - what the project will and will not do
- [Security Policy](security_policy.md) - the security policy of the project
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# Roadmap
This page describes what the project intends to do, and what it does not intend to do, over the next year. Concrete
work items are tracked in the [GitHub milestones](https://github.com/nlohmann/json/milestones) and the
[issue tracker](https://github.com/nlohmann/json/issues).
## What the project will do
- **Keep the C++11 baseline.** The library will continue to compile with every
[supported C++11 compiler](https://github.com/nlohmann/json/blob/develop/README.md#supported-compilers). Features of
later standards are only used when they are guarded by the `JSON_HAS_CPP_*` macros.
- **Stay conformant to JSON.** The parser and serializer follow [RFC 8259](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8259).
Extensions such as [comments](../features/comments.md) or [trailing commas](../features/trailing_commas.md) remain
opt-in.
- **Keep the 3.x public API stable.** Releases follow [semantic versioning](https://semver.org). Changes that would
break existing code are only added behind a feature macro, so users can opt in and test their code before a next
major release.
- **Support a broad range of compilers and platforms.** The [CI](quality_assurance.md) keeps testing old and new
versions of GCC, Clang, MSVC, and other compilers on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
- **Keep the quality assurance up.** Every change keeps the test coverage at 100%, passes the static and dynamic
analysis, and is fuzz-tested by OSS-Fuzz, see [Quality assurance](quality_assurance.md).
- **Harden the library against hostile input.** Handling deeply nested values without exhausting the call stack is
ongoing work.
- **Fix bugs and security issues** reported through the issue tracker and the [security policy](security_policy.md).
## What the project will not do
- **Break the public API of version 3.x.** See the
[contribution guidelines](https://github.com/nlohmann/json/blob/develop/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md#break-the-public-api)
for what counts as a breaking change.
- **Require a newer C++ standard than C++11.**
- **Break JSON conformance** or enable non-standard extensions by default.
- **Add dependencies** or require a build step. The library remains header-only, and the single header
`json.hpp` remains a complete distribution.
- **Trade simplicity for speed or memory efficiency.** Performance improvements are welcome, but the library is not
meant to compete with the fastest JSON libraries, see [Design goals](../home/design_goals.md).
## Version 4.0
There is no decision yet on whether or when a version 4.0 with breaking changes will be released. Proposals that need
a major version, for instance stricter type conversions, are collected in issue
[#3453](https://github.com/nlohmann/json/issues/3453). Until then, such changes are only added as opt-in behavior
behind feature macros.
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- community/contribution_guidelines.md
- community/quality_assurance.md
- community/governance.md
- community/roadmap.md
- community/security_policy.md
# Extras