sf update stable -a command shows later versions than latest stable release

[kez-sophos]

We are looking for a way to know if there is an update available for sf cli before triggering sf update. Running sf update stable -a command shows versions later than the latest stable release available when running sf update. Is this expected output for the command?

Sample output:

Latest version as of posting is 2.28.6 (Feb 14, 2024) [stable]

[kez-sophos]

Update:

Looks like I misunderstood how the sf update command works and there isn't actually a "sf update stable -a" command.

Is there a way to know if there is an update available within the sf cli and if not would something like that be useful?

[kez-sophos]

One can use the sf whatsnew command to check if there is an update available.

[mshanemc]

Yes. We ship a nightly release, and have a Release Candidate (RC) that's the next week's release. So by the time something gets to stable there's been ~13 releases before that.

Besides the release notes and sf whatsnew, you can see what the versions are by running
npm view @salesforce/cli (see nightly latest-rc and latest tags) or by looking on npm https://www.npmjs.com/package/@salesforce/cli?activeTab=versions