You Cannot Un-publish an API: Contracts, Compatibility, and Retirement
A field you stopped populating is a breaking change to whoever read it. The provider does not get to decide what counts as compatible.
-
-
Breaking Change
Every breaking change except one produces an error somewhere. Redefining what a field means produces correct-looking numbers that disagree with last month’s.
-
Changing a Data Model Without Breaking the People Using It
The dangerous model change is the one that passes every check. See what breaks consumers, why meaning changes are invisible, and how to publish one safely.
-
Semantic Versioning
MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH tells users whether an upgrade can break them — but only if what counts as the public interface was declared first. That applies to data, too.