undorelease

Undorelease is the practice of retracting or undoing a software release after it has been distributed or deployed. It is used to mitigate issues discovered after release, such as critical bugs, security vulnerabilities, licensing or compliance problems, or policy concerns. The term can apply to public software releases, internal builds, or artifacts distributed through package registries, app stores, and deployment channels.

Strategies for undorelease include removing the artifact from distribution, disabling automatic updates, rolling back deployments to a known-good version, or issuing a new release that fixes the issue. In some ecosystems, undorelease is possible only through revocation or deprecation of the package, while in others it may require a hotfix or patch release. The feasibility of undorelease depends on the release channel, the distribution mechanism, and user impact; widely disseminated releases may necessitate broader remediation.

Effective undorelease requires coordination among product management, engineering, security, and communications teams. Typical steps include triage and decision making, selecting rollback or patch strategy, executing the technical rollback or patch, validating the fix, and documenting the incident and rationale. It also involves communicating with users and stakeholders, and updating regulatory or compliance records if needed. Care must be taken to preserve data integrity during rollback and to handle dependent services and migrations.

Related concepts include rollback, hotfix, deprecation, and revocation in package registries. Examples vary by platform; in some ecosystems a package can be unpublished or deprecated, while in others a temporary hotfix is released and the problematic version remains available but clearly marked. The goal of undorelease is to minimize user impact while restoring functionality and trust.