Release Candidate - CI/CD Glossary Definition
A release candidate is a build believed ready to ship that undergoes final testing before becoming the actual release, unchanged if no blockers appear.
A release candidate (RC) is a build believed ready for release that is put through final testing; if no blocking issues surface, it becomes the shipped release unchanged.
Release candidates freeze a specific build for final validation. Tagging them as 1.4.0-rc.1, -rc.2, and so on lets teams test the exact bits that will ship rather than a moving target.
RC naming
Under semantic versioning, a release candidate is a pre-release like 1.4.0-rc.1. It sorts below the final 1.4.0, so package managers will not install it by default.
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