Node.js moves to one major release a year, starting with v27 alpha
Node 26 entered Active LTS on 28 October as the last release under the old odd/even model. Node 27's alpha, tagged the next day, starts an annual cycle where every major becomes LTS.
Node.js 26 entered Active LTS on 28 October, the last release to follow the old twice-a-year, odd/even model. The next day, 29 October, the project tagged 27.0.0-alpha.0.0.0, the first release under a new schedule: one major version a year, and every major automatically becomes LTS rather than alternating between a long-lived even release and a short-lived odd one.
Under the new model, each major spends six months in Alpha (October to March), six months in Current (April to October), then 30 months in LTS, for roughly 36 months of total support from its first Current release. Version numbers now track the calendar year: 27.0.0 ships in April 2027, 28.0.0 in April 2028, and so on. Alpha releases carry semver-major breaking changes and are meant for library authors and CI to test against, not for production.
node --version
# 26.x is Active LTS now; 27.x stays Alpha-only until April 2027Why it matters: if you only ever track LTS, nothing changes beyond tidier version numbers, every major gets a support lifecycle instead of some being skipped. If you maintain a library or CI pipeline, the Alpha phase is the new place to catch breaking changes months before they land in a release anyone runs in production.