Implement a sanity check to validate the min version of cookiecutter

[ericof]

Description:

In a template. support a sanity check for the minimal version of cookiecutter

example:

{
 "__min_version__": "2.2"
}

[kurtmckee]

I like this idea, but it's just an idea, not an implementation.

Would it be an option to release 2.2.0 immediately? I advocate for more frequent releases and less friction to making those releases.

Edit: I'm specifically arguing against adding an idea to the 2.2.0 milestone. The 2.x release series can simply be "merge something, release it", so there's ongoing iterative improvements, faster turnaround times, and tighter feedback loops for features and bugfixes.

Milestones might be more appropriate for v3 and v4 planning.

[ericof]

@kurtmckee Moved to 3.0.0 (even though I plan to implement it before)

[ericof]

Probably we should follow the spec added on #1580

[michael-todorovic]

Hello,
Talking about sanity checks, could it be possible also to check minimal python version but only if it's provided in the template? This could be valuable for hooks :)

Like

{
 "__min_version__": "2.2",
 "__min_python_version": "3.11"
}

[exhuma]

I'm working for a large company with at least 200 developers. I maintain cookie-cutters and recently made use of newer features (f.ex. the __prompt__ variables and using UUIDs) that was added after the devs installed their CC executable.

I'm constantly getting messages now that "Your cookiecutter doesn't work" to which I have to reply: "Your cookiecutter version is too old. Please upgrade".

It's quite annoying and a feature like a "min CC version" would make this much smoother for everyone. The users would get a clear and helpful message instead of ugly error messages and the CC maintainer would not need to tell all the users to upgrade whenever a new feature is leveraged.