From 111eca6dc5ab3670c90d84ca03442b874f2b4bac Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Mike McCready <66998419+MikeMcC399@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:59:49 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] docs: describe strategy for Alpine new release

---
 CONTRIBUTING.md | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 5bcc32897..1e7b53497 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -33,6 +33,11 @@ New **npm** releases are not tracked. We simply use the npm version bundled in t
 from templates starting with the Node 26 images.
 
 **[Alpine Linux](https://alpinelinux.org/releases/)** latest two releases are used.
+When Alpine Linux makes a new branch available, which is planned for May and November each year,
+this branch is adopted as a new base image and it becomes the default
+for each supported Node.js release line.
+The lowest previously used Alpine Linux release is dropped for future image builds,
+so that only the two latest releases are maintained.
 
 ### Image Creation Automation