Version rc

[schussda]

I use dynamic versioning via a file and want to ensure the version is a relaease candidate.

I saw the option version rc here

It will change version 1.0.0 to 1.0.0rc0 or 1.0.0rc0 to 1.0.0rc1
Is there a way to change nothing when a version is already a rc?
I just want to ensure no release version is used.

[tayfuryldz]

hatch version rc is a bump operation, so it intentionally is not idempotent: on a stable version it creates rc0, and on an existing release candidate it increments the rc segment. There isn't a separate "ensure this is an rc, otherwise leave it unchanged" segment in the standard version scheme.

If the goal is a CI guard rather than a version bump, I would keep those operations separate: read the current version with hatch version, parse it as a PEP 440 version, and fail unless it has an RC prerelease. For example, with packaging.version.Version, the condition can be based on Version(value).pre and require the prerelease tag to be "rc".

That also avoids a subtle problem with trying to make hatch version rc conditional in shell: a prerelease can be a, b, or rc, so merely checking is_prerelease is not the same as checking that the current version is specifically a release candidate.

If you actually want "convert a stable version to rc0, otherwise preserve an existing rc unchanged", the safe workflow is therefore:

1. inspect hatch version;
2. if its parsed prerelease is already ("rc", N), do nothing;
3. if it is a stable release, run hatch version rc;
4. decide explicitly what to do with alpha/beta/dev versions rather than silently converting them.

That keeps Hatch's segment semantics predictable: commands that name a segment continue to mean "update that segment", while idempotent policy checks remain in the release automation that needs them.