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docs: add alpha, beta, preview, legacy availability values#5130

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devin/1776986455-add-alpha-preview-legacy-availability
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docs: add alpha, beta, preview, legacy availability values#5130
Swimburger wants to merge 4 commits intomainfrom
devin/1776986455-add-alpha-preview-legacy-availability

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@Swimburger Swimburger commented Apr 23, 2026

Summary

Documents alpha, beta, preview, and legacy as valid x-fern-availability / availability values, alongside the existing in-development, pre-release, generally-available, and deprecated. Also promotes beta from an OpenAPI-only alias for pre-release to a first-class value usable in Fern Definitions (matching the change in fern#15320).

The pages at /learn/api-definitions/openapi/extensions/availability and /learn/api-definitions/fern-definition/availability now list these values with brief descriptions of each lifecycle stage and the badge they render as.

Review & Testing Checklist for Human

  • Skim the rendered preview to confirm the table layouts match the rest of the API definitions section.
  • Sanity-check that the badge labels described here (Alpha, Beta, Preview, Legacy) match what fern-platform actually renders once fern-platform#10027 and fern#15320 ship.

Notes

This PR is purely docs — no functional code changes. The runtime support comes from fern#15320 (CLI / IR / parsers) and fern-platform#10027 (FDR schema + UI). Until those merge, customers writing availability: alpha|preview|legacy in a Fern Definition or x-fern-availability: alpha|preview|legacy in OpenAPI will be rejected by validation.

Link to Devin session: https://app.devin.ai/sessions/dfd46458269a401d82862980e905e9a2
Requested by: @Swimburger


Open in Devin Review

Document the newly supported x-fern-availability / availability values
for OpenAPI endpoints and Fern Definitions: alpha, preview, legacy.

Co-Authored-By: Devin AI <158243242+devin-ai-integration[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
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## Endpoints, types, and properties

Availability can be:
- `alpha` which means it is an early experimental release; will show an `Alpha` tag
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🚫 [vale] reported by reviewdog 🐶
[Microsoft.Contractions] Use 'it's' instead of 'it is'.

- `in-development` which means it is being worked on; will show a `Beta` tag
- `pre-release` which means it is available; will show a `Beta` tag
- `deprecated` which means it will be removed in the future; will show a `Deprecated` tag
- `preview` which means it is feature-complete but subject to change; will show a `Preview` tag
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🚫 [vale] reported by reviewdog 🐶
[Microsoft.Contractions] Use 'it's' instead of 'it is'.

- `deprecated` which means it will be removed in the future; will show a `Deprecated` tag
- `preview` which means it is feature-complete but subject to change; will show a `Preview` tag
- `generally-available` which means it is stable and available for use; will show a `GA` tag
- `deprecated` which means it will be removed in the future; will show a `Deprecated` tag
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⚠️ [vale] reported by reviewdog 🐶
[FernStyles.Current] Avoid time-relative terms like 'in the future' that become outdated

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✅ Devin Review: No Issues Found

Devin Review analyzed this PR and found no potential bugs to report.

View in Devin Review to see 2 additional findings.

Open in Devin Review

| `pre-release` | Available | `Beta` |
| `preview` | Feature-complete but subject to change | `Preview` |
| `generally-available` | Stable and available for use | `GA` |
| `deprecated` | Will be removed in the future | `Deprecated` |
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⚠️ [vale] reported by reviewdog 🐶
[FernStyles.Current] Avoid time-relative terms like 'in the future' that become outdated

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Self-review

Diff is small and the docs match what's actually shipping in fern#15320 + fern-platform#10027.

  • fern/products/api-def/openapi/extensions/availability.mdx — refactored the bare-list format into value — short description; shows a Tag lines so the new options have room to explain what they mean. Existing values (beta, generally-available, deprecated) get the same treatment for consistency.
  • fern/products/api-def/ferndef/availability.mdx — kept the existing "X which means Y; will show Z tag" prose style and inserted alpha, preview, legacy in the right places. Did not touch in-development or pre-release lines.
  • Both pages list the same 7 values in the same order (alpha, in-development/beta, pre-release, preview, generally-available, deprecated, legacy). The Fern Definition page keeps in-development because that's a Fern-Definition-specific value not exposed in OpenAPI's x-fern-availability.

This PR can land independently — it's just docs and the values it describes are valid the moment fern#15320 ships.

Co-Authored-By: Devin AI <158243242+devin-ai-integration[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
@devin-ai-integration devin-ai-integration Bot changed the title docs: add alpha, preview, legacy availability values docs: add alpha, beta, preview, legacy availability values Apr 25, 2026
Co-Authored-By: Devin AI <158243242+devin-ai-integration[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
You can set the availability for the entire API reference or for specific sections in your `docs.yml` configuration. Options are: `stable`, `generally-available`, `in-development`, `pre-release`, `deprecated`, or `beta`.
You can set the availability for the entire API reference or for specific sections in your `docs.yml` configuration. Options are: `stable`, `generally-available`, `in-development`, `pre-release`, `deprecated`, `alpha`, `beta`, `preview`, or `legacy`.
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🚫 [vale] reported by reviewdog 🐶
[FernStyles.Reject] Use 'API Reference' instead of 'API reference'.

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Self-review #2

Both reference pages now use a Value | Description | Tag table format instead of bullets, listing the full set of 9 values for the Fern Definition page (alpha, in-development, beta, pre-release, preview, generally-available, deprecated, legacy) and the 6 OpenAPI-side values customers can write in x-fern-availability (alpha, beta, preview, generally-available, deprecated, legacy).

snippets/availability.mdx updated to list the docs.yml-side options for the API Reference. Tag column matches the badge each value renders to in fern-platform.

CI green (3/3).

No issues found.

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