# Unpopular opinion: Maybe \`stateVersion\` shouldn't exist at all

**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/unpopular-opinion-maybe-stateversion-shouldnt-exist-at-all/77048
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [April 15, 2026, 1:22pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/unpopular-opinion-maybe-stateversion-shouldnt-exist-at-all/77048 "2026-04-15T13:22:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 3

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### Author: ![Adda](https://discourse.nixos.org/user_avatar/discourse.nixos.org/adda/32/10099_2.png) [@Adda](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/Adda)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2026, 1:34pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/unpopular-opinion-maybe-stateversion-shouldnt-exist-at-all/77048/3 "2026-04-15T13:34:43Z")

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Just a few days ago, there was an interesting proposal trying to fix `stateVersion` at least a little bit. Relevant and interesting read, including the discussion:

> [@Incrementally salvaging stateVersion](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/incrementally-salvaging-stateversion/76848):
>
> system.stateVersion is widely acknowledged to be an imperfect thing. I’d like to propose incrementally augmenting it with a less imperfect thing. Problems I want to address: Users, new and old, perennially want to update system.stateVersion. We can tell them not to until we’re blue in the face, but there’s a certain kind of OCD computer toucher who simply cannot allow anything that looks like a date in their system config to be more than a year old; and the NixOS community has, I would wager,…

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/unpopular-opinion-maybe-stateversion-shouldnt-exist-at-all/77048)._