breaking change
A change requires an existing consumer to adapt.
Use this when An API, file format, or shared function is changing.
without the term
“I'm changing this API response and making validation stricter. Will that break any apps that already use it? Can you check and give them a way to move over?”
with the term · How do you ask a model for breaking change?
Identify breaking changes in this patch. Test representative existing consumers and provide a migration path for each intentional incompatibility.
What is breaking change?
A change is breaking if an existing consumer has to change, whether a name was removed, a default changed, validation became stricter, or an error looks different.
Why does breaking change matter when vibe coding?
An apparently stricter or cleaner implementation can reject inputs that previously worked.
How do you do breaking change?
Identify consumers, preserve compatibility where needed, and plan migration for intentional breaks.
What goes wrong with breaking change?
Checking only the exported function signatures.