We're following SemVer (as much as one can be following it when the major version is 0). At this point bumps of the minor (second) version number are considered major releases and always include new features or significant changes to existing features. API compatibility between major releases is not a (big) concern (although we try to break the API rarely and only for a good reason).

The development cycle for the next major release starts immediately after the previous one has been shipped. Bugfix/point releases (if any) address only serious bugs and never contain new features.

The versions of CIDER and cider-nrepl are always kept in sync. If you're tracking the master branch of CIDER, you should also be tracking the master branch of cider-nrepl.