Proposal for versioning the ilab config file

Related to instructlab/instructlab/issues/1725

Signed-off-by: Ali Maredia <[email protected]>

Author: alimaredia

.spellcheck-en-custom.txt

@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ hardcoded
 hipBLAS
 ilab
 impactful
+incrementing
 Inferencing
 instantiation
 instructlab

docs/schema/ilab-config-version.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# `ilab` Config.yaml Versioning
+
+## Problem Statement
+
+Currently the `ilab` CLI's configuration file, `config.yaml`, does not contain a version.
+
+The config file in `ilab` version `0.17` cannot be used in future versions of `ilab` due to new mandatory fields and changes to existing fields.
+
+As the configuration file grows, changes, and becomes more complex, versioning is necessary in order to support forwards and backwards compatibility.
+
+## Proposal
+
+The `ilab` configuration file has a new `version` field at the top level of the config.
+
+The value of `version` should start at `1.0`.
+
+To ensure configuration files before the `0.18.0` release of `ilab` cannot be used, if `version` is not included as a field in the configuration file, `ilab` will throw an error.
+
+## Future Considerations
+
+As future development of `ilab` occurs, ramifications and tooling for the versioning the configuration file will need to be determined for users and developers.
+
+Such considerations include but are not limited to:
+
+- Rules for incrementing the version number
+- Tooling to support forward compatibility of configuration files
+- Limits for the forward and backward compatibility of configuration files