Release Channels

Updates & Config 2026-08-28

Shanios publishes releases through two channels: latest and stable. This page explains the difference and how promotion works.

Channel Overview

Channel	Purpose	Update Frequency	Risk
`latest`	Newest features and fixes	Every build	Higher — bleeding edge
`stable`	Verified, tested releases	After verification period	Lower — production ready

How Channels Work

Pointer Files

Pointer files are per-edition on Cloudflare R2 (downloads.shani.dev):

https://downloads.shani.dev/<edition>/latest.txt
https://downloads.shani.dev/<edition>/stable.txt
https://downloads.shani.dev/<edition>/iso-latest.txt
https://downloads.shani.dev/<edition>/iso-stable.txt

Where <edition> is gnome or plasma (the only two editions with signed ISOs on R2).

Each file contains the date of the current release:

20260518

When shani-deploy checks for updates, it fetches these pointer files and compares them to the currently installed version.

Note: COSMIC, Kiosk, and Server profiles are available as base images (.zst send-streams) only — they do not have signed ISOs on R2. See Cloud Images Beyond AWS for deployment options.

Promotion Flow

A new image is built by shani-install-media and uploaded to R2
The <edition>/latest.txt pointer is updated to the new date
Machines on the latest channel see the update and can install it
After a verification period (no critical bugs reported), the <edition>/stable.txt pointer is updated
Machines on the stable channel then receive the update

graph LR
    A[Build Image] --> B[Upload to R2]
    B --> C[Update latest.txt]
    C --> D[latest channel machines]
    D --> E[Verification period]
    E --> F[Update stable.txt]
    F --> G[stable channel machines]

Example: fetch current stable ISO date and verify an artifact:

DATE=$(curl -s https://downloads.shani.dev/gnome/iso-stable.txt)
VER="${DATE:0:4}.${DATE:4:2}.${DATE:6:2}"
curl -sI "https://downloads.shani.dev/gnome/$DATE/signed_shanios-gnome-$VER-x86_64.iso"

Choosing a Channel

Developers and early adopters: Use latest to get new features first
Production machines and fleet deployments: Use stable for reliability
OEM deployments: Use stable — never ship latest to end users

Switching Channels

# Check current channel
cat /etc/shani-channel

# Switch to stable
sudo shani-deploy --set-channel stable

# Switch to latest
sudo shani-deploy --set-channel latest