generated: '2026-08-13'
method: searched
source: >-
  https://www.goatcounter.com/help/api,
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arp242/goatcounter/main/CHANGELOG.md,
  https://www.goatcounter.com/status
description: >-
  Versioning, stability and operational-transparency posture for the GoatCounter JSON API.
  GoatCounter is a single-maintainer open-source project with a dated CHANGELOG, tagged releases,
  and a live machine-readable status endpoint, but no formal deprecation policy, no Sunset/Deprecation
  header support, and no SLA.
versioning:
  scheme: uri-path
  current: v0
  versioned: false
  path_prefix: /api/v0
  docs: https://www.goatcounter.com/help/api
  statement: >-
    Quoted from the API help page: "The API is currently unversioned and prefixed with /api/v0;
    breaking changes will be avoided and are not expected but may occur. I'll be sure to send ample
    notification of this to everyone who has generated an API key."
  note: >-
    A stability commitment plus a promise to notify key holders. It is not a published deprecation
    policy — there is no notice period, no sunset window and no deprecation page — so no Deprecation
    pointer is emitted for this provider.
deprecation:
  policy_url: null
  policy_published: false
  sunset_header: false
  deprecation_header: false
  rfc8594: false
deprecated_elements:
  - kind: parameter
    name: daily
    operation: GET /api/v0/stats/hits
    source: openapi/_original/goatcounter-api-swagger20.json
    statement: 'Deprecated: identical to group=day and will be removed in the future.'
    replacement: group=day
  - kind: setting
    name: window.goatcounter.vars / window.counter
    surface: count.js
    source: https://www.goatcounter.com/help/countjs-versions
    statement: >-
      Removed in count.js v5; replaced by window.goatcounter / data-goatcounter-settings and the
      data-goatcounter attribute.
  - kind: flag
    name: '-websocket'
    surface: goatcounter serve
    source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arp242/goatcounter/main/CHANGELOG.md
    statement: WebSocket support is detected automatically as of v2.7.0; the flag is now a no-op.
deprecated_operations: []
release_cadence:
  tagged_releases: true
  latest: v2.7.0
  latest_date: '2025-12-15'
  previous: v2.6.0 (2025-06-08), v2.5.0 (2023-12-10), v2.4.1 (2022-11-15)
  source: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/releases
  note: >-
    Roughly one tagged release every 6-18 months. The hosted service does not run the tags —
    the CHANGELOG states "The goatcounter.com service generally runs the latest commit on the
    main branch", so hosted behaviour can lead the newest tag.
status_page:
  url: https://www.goatcounter.com/status
  kind: machine-readable service status endpoint
  format: application/json
  fields_returned: [GOARCH, GOOS, cgo, database, go, race, uptime, version]
  incident_history: false
  subscribe: false
  evidence:
    probed: '2026-08-13'
    url: https://www.goatcounter.com/status
    http_status: 200
    content_type: application/json
  note: >-
    This is a live status resource the provider serves — it reports process uptime, the running build
    version and the database in use — but it is a health/build endpoint, not an incident-history
    status page with subscriptions or postmortems. Recorded precisely so the difference is visible.
sla:
  published: false
  url: null
  uptime_target: null
  note: >-
    No SLA. The hosted service is free and donation-supported (see plans/goatcounter-plans-pricing.yml),
    and the provider directs serious/commercial use to self-hosting.
support:
  channels:
    - kind: email
      value: support@goatcounter.com
    - kind: issues
      value: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter/issues
      note: The docs explicitly invite support requests and general questions as public GitHub issues.
    - kind: form
      value: https://www.goatcounter.com/contact
changelog: changelog/goatcounter-changelog.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com