Backport

How it is used

Common in release maintenance and long-term support branches. Teams backport security fixes, important bug fixes, and low-risk compatibility changes.

Example sentences

1. We decided to backport the cache fix to the 2.4 branch because several enterprise customers cannot upgrade to the latest release yet.

   Here backport means taking a fix already made in a newer branch and adapting it so older supported users receive the same correction.

2. The maintainer refused to backport the UI rewrite, arguing that the old release should receive only targeted fixes with minimal risk.

   In this case, the term highlights selective transfer: not every new change belongs in an older release branch, especially broad rewrites.

Common collocations

• backport a fix
• backport to a branch
• backport patch
• backport changes

Related terms

• releaseA version of a product that is made available to users, or the act of making it available. Also a verb: to release a new version.
• hotfixAn urgent fix for a serious problem in production, released quickly outside the normal release schedule.

More terms: Release and Maintenance

• deploy
• production
• build
• ship
• documentation
• CI/CD
• roll back
• staging
• legacy code
• deprecate
• release notes
• patch