Versioning & Compatibility

SDK ↔ Protocol mapping

Each major version of @stellar/stellar-sdk is built against a specific Stellar protocol version. From v27 onwards the SDK major matches the protocol major (v27 → Protocol 27, v28 → Protocol 28, …). For majors before v27, the protocol target is documented in the release notes of the relevant tag.

SDK major	Protocol	Status
15.x	(see release notes)	Current

The mapping table is intentionally minimal pre-v27. After v27 the table becomes 1:1 and self-explanatory.

Why older majors aren’t network-compatible

The Stellar network upgrades its protocol periodically. Once an upgrade ships, transactions built with an SDK major that targets an older protocol may use deprecated XDR shapes or fail validation. A keypair or strkey doesn’t depend on the protocol version, so basic key manipulation remains usable across majors — but anything that constructs, signs, or submits a transaction is protocol-bound.

Always use the SDK major that matches the protocol of the network you’re targeting (mainnet, testnet, or futurenet — each may run a different protocol during a rollout window).

Single-version docs policy

This site documents only the current major of @stellar/stellar-sdk. We do not maintain a documentation archive for older majors. The maintenance cost — keeping multiple parallel reference trees in sync, ensuring cross-version links don’t rot, running multiple builds — outweighs the benefit, given that older majors are rarely the right choice for new development (per the network-compatibility note above).

Finding docs for older versions

To browse documentation for a specific older SDK version:

Find the matching Git tag in the stellar/js-stellar-sdk releases page.
Browse the docs/ directory at that ref on GitHub. The reference pages under docs/reference/ are committed at each release and their inline source links point to the source files at that release’s commit SHA, so the link targets resolve correctly even when the docs site itself only shows the current major.