Tilde Range (~) — Patch-Level Updates Only

Understanding the Tilde Range (~)

The tilde range is the conservative alternative to the caret range. It allows only patch-level updates, meaning bug fixes but no new features.

How the Tilde Works

~MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH allows changes to the patch version only:

Range	Expanded	Allowed
~1.2.3	>=1.2.3 <1.3.0	1.2.3, 1.2.4, 1.2.99
~1.2	>=1.2.0 <1.3.0	Same as above
~1	>=1.0.0 <2.0.0	All 1.x (like ^1)
~0.2.3	>=0.2.3 <0.3.0	0.2.3, 0.2.4, 0.2.99

Tilde vs Caret

The key difference is in how much flexibility each allows:

Version	Caret (^)	Tilde (~)
1.2.3	<2.0.0	<1.3.0
0.2.3	<0.3.0	<0.3.0
0.0.3	<0.0.4	<0.1.0

Notice that for 0.2.3, the tilde and caret produce the same result. They diverge only for versions >=1.0.0.

When to Use Tilde

Choose the tilde when:

• You have been burned by a minor version update breaking your code
• The dependency is critical and stability matters more than features
• You are pinning a specific feature set and only want bug fixes

{
  "dependencies": {
    "critical-lib": "~2.4.0"
  }
}

This accepts 2.4.0 through 2.4.x but rejects 2.5.0.