From f4b3638e239d4946d0c96546de7239ceb3c67148 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "mintlify[bot]" <109931778+mintlify[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2026 19:51:44 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] docs: explain plugin installs from pre-release-only
 repositories

---
 datumctl/plugins/building-plugins.mdx | 2 +-
 datumctl/plugins/using-plugins.mdx    | 2 ++
 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/datumctl/plugins/building-plugins.mdx b/datumctl/plugins/building-plugins.mdx
index 4f84bd9..cd8952c 100644
--- a/datumctl/plugins/building-plugins.mdx
+++ b/datumctl/plugins/building-plugins.mdx
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ Users can always install directly from a GitHub release without a catalog:
 datumctl plugin install your-org/datumctl-dns
 ```
 
-This path requires a `checksums.txt` alongside your release archives, in goreleaser's default two-column format.
+This path requires a `checksums.txt` alongside your release archives, in goreleaser's default two-column format. Tag releases with a semantic version such as `v1.2.3` or `v1.2.3-rc.1`. If you have published only pre-releases, datumctl installs the highest pre-release tag.
 
 ## Next steps
 
diff --git a/datumctl/plugins/using-plugins.mdx b/datumctl/plugins/using-plugins.mdx
index 3794f25..871b7d0 100644
--- a/datumctl/plugins/using-plugins.mdx
+++ b/datumctl/plugins/using-plugins.mdx
@@ -75,6 +75,8 @@ datumctl plugin install your-org/datumctl-example
 datumctl plugin install your-org/datumctl-example@v1.2.0
 ```
 
+Without a version, datumctl installs the release GitHub marks as latest. If the repository has published only pre-releases, datumctl installs the highest pre-release instead, and `datumctl plugin upgrade` follows newer pre-releases the same way.
+
 <Info>
   If a bare name exists in more than one catalog, datumctl lists the matches instead of guessing. Qualify the name with its catalog (for example `acme/deploy`) to choose.
 </Info>