Stable API

What is the Stable API, and Should You Use It?

The MongoDB Stable API (previously labeled the Versioned API) lets you upgrade your MongoDB server at will, and ensure that behavior changes between MongoDB versions do not break your application.

MongoDB 5.0 introduces the Stable API for applications communicating with MongoDB server products. The Stable API allows you to specify which version of the MongoDB API your application runs against.

The Stable API provides long-term API stability for applications and supports more frequent releases and automatic server upgrades. This allows your applications to take advantage of rapidly released features without risking backwards-breaking changes.

The default behavior for your driver connection will continue to function as expected, even if you do not explicitly specify an apiVersion.

The Stable API encompasses the subset of MongoDB commands that applications use to read and write data, create collections and indexes, and perform other common tasks.

Backward Compatibility Guarantee

Your application will not experience significant behavior changes resulting from server upgrades. This guarantee holds as long as the new server supports your specified API version.

To guarantee backward compatibility, your application must:

• Declare an API version

• Only use commands and features supported in your specified API version

• Deploy with a supported version of an official driver

Declare the API Version

➤ Use the Select your language drop-down menu in the upper-right to set the language of the examples on this page.

To use the Stable API, upgrade to the latest driver and create your application's MongoClient:

"1" is currently the only API version available.

By default, clients are non-strict. A non-strict client allows you to run any command, regardless of whether or not it belongs to the Stable API.

Checking Client API Versions

Use the serverStatus command to check for your application's configured API version. For each application connected to your MongoDB instance, an appname appears in the apiVersions document.

See metrics.apiVersions for more information.

db.runCommand( { serverStatus: 1 } ).metrics.apiVersions

Create a Strict Client

A strict client rejects all commands outside of the Stable API. Attempts to use commands outside of the Stable API will receive the APIVersionError response.

Use the sample code to create a strict client:

Migrate To Stable API Commands

To migrate your application to use the Stable API, you must:

1. Run your application's test suite with the new MongoClient options.

2. Determine which commands and features you're using that are outside of the Stable API.

3. Migrate to alternative commands and features in the Stable API.

Once your application uses only commands and features defined in the Stable API, you can redeploy it with the new MongoClient options and be confident that future server upgrades won't negatively impact your application.

db.sales.insertMany([
    { "_id" : 1, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 2, "date" : ISODate("2021-01-01T08:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 2, "item" : "jkl", "price" : 20, "quantity" : 1, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-03T09:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 3, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-03T09:05:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 4, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-15T08:00:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 5, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-15T09:05:00Z") },
    { "_id" : 6, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-15T12:05:10Z") },
    { "_id" : 7, "item" : "xyz", "price" : 5, "quantity" : 10, "date" : ISODate("2021-02-15T14:12:12Z") },
    { "_id" : 8, "item" : "abc", "price" : 10, "quantity" : 5, "date" : ISODate("2021-03-16T20:20:13Z") }
])

{
      "ok" : 0,
      "errmsg" : "Provided apiStrict:true, but the command count is not in API Version 1",
      "code" : 323,
      "codeName" : "APIStrictError"
}

db.sales.aggregate([
  {
      $group: {
        _id: null,
        count: { $count: { } }
      }
  }
])

{ "_id" : null, "count" : 8 }

How To Use Commands and Features Outside of the Stable API

To use commands and features outside of the Stable API, you can connect to your deployment with a non-strict client. By default, clients are non-strict.

Use the sample code to create a non-strict client:

Using this non-strict client allows you to run commands outside of the Stable API. For example, this non-strict client now allows you to use the count command once again.

API V1 Commands

API V1 protects you from API-breaking changes for the following commands:

• abortTransaction

• aggregate (with limitations) [1]

• authenticate

• collMod

• commitTransaction

• create (with limitations) [1]

• createIndexes (with limitations) [1]

• delete

• drop

• dropDatabase

• dropIndexes

• endSessions

• explain (with limitations) [2]

• find (with limitations) [1]

• findAndModify

• getMore

• insert

• hello

• killCursors

• listCollections

• listDatabases

• listIndexes

• ping

• refreshSessions

• update

Parameters

You can specify the following optional parameters for Stable API in your application's MongoDB driver connection code. Check the MongoDB driver documentation for the driver you use in your application for more information:

Behavior