Product release lifecycle

This document describes Sonar's product release lifecycle and standard definitions for alpha, beta, and general availability (GA) stages. The alpha and beta stages replace the previously used Early Access (deprecated) programs.

Alpha

Products or features in the alpha stage have limited functionality and are subject to significant change or cancellation. Access is invitation-only. Products or features in alpha are not covered under SLA.

Beta

Products or features in the beta stage have nearly complete functionality. Access is by request and requires approval. Products or features in beta are not covered under SLA.

General availability (GA)

A public release of a product or feature. It includes all planned functionalities and is available to customers for purchase. A GA product is publicly announced by Sonar, fully functional, stable, documented, supported, and covered under SLA.

About Early access features (deprecated)

Sonar makes some features available as Early Access releases. They are excluded from service level agreements (SLAs) and support obligations. 

Enabling and disabling Early Access features

If early access features are available for your SonarQube instance, you can enable and disable them as an administrator from the Administration > General Settings > Early Access Features tab.

Configuring AI CodeFix Early Access

AI CodeFix is available in Early Access for all commercial editions of SonarQube Server.

Sonar AI CodeFix uses a large language model (LLM) to automatically generate AI-driven code fixes for the issues discovered by SonarQube Server. The process is simple. When you request a fix, the affected code and issue description are sent to an LLM. AI CodeFix then proposes an edit that resolves the problem without changing the code’s functionality.

AI CodeFix currently uses Open AI’s GPT-4o or your own Azure OpenAI LLM, to suggest fixes for a select set of rules in Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C#, and C++. It’s also possible to use your own self-hosted Azure OpenAI Service model; see below for instructions.

Please see the Managing AI features page to enable AI CodeFix and choose your own LLM, and the Getting AI-generated fix suggestions article for instructions about using the feature.

Configuring Misra Compliance 2023 C++ Early Access

This feature is available starting in SonarQube Server Entreprise Edition.

By default, when MISRA C++ 2023 rules are applied during analysis, a scanner warning informs developers that additional MISRA C++ 2023 Early Access rules can be enabled on their instance. As an instance administrator, you can activate or deactivate this warning by passing a scanner property at the instance level.

To do this, set the sonar.cfamily.misra.warnNewRules scanner property to true or false in your $<INSTALL_DIRECTORY>/conf/sonar-scanner.properties file. 

Developers can disable this message at the scanner level when they configure the analysis (see Customizing the analysis).