Hide stale tags and deprecated versions by default in version history

[ShroXd]

Describe the feature

Context: #2176 (comment)
cc: @mbtools

Currently, the version history page displays all versions by default. It would be better to hide stale tags and deprecated versions by default, while providing a toggle button on the version page to let users reveal them on demand.

There are also a few related questions worth discussing:

1. User-level configuration. Should we allow users to configure this behavior in the settings page, so their preference persists across sessions?
2. Hiding strategy for tags. Package maintainers may use a wide variety of tags, such as latest, stable, rc, beta, next, alpha, canary, nightly, experimental, legacy, and more. Since many tag names are convention-based rather than standardized, it's worth discussing what the hiding strategy should look like — e.g., a predefined blocklist, a priority/tier system, or something user-configurable.
3. Default visibility for deprecated-but-widely-used versions (but it may hard to know if a version is deprecated-but-widely-used).

Additional information

• Would you be willing to help implement this feature?

Final checks

• Read the contribution guide.
• Check existing issues.

[mbtools]

IMHO, here's what's best for the vast majority of users, the consumers of packages:

• no settings
• hide deprecated by default
• hide pre-releases by default

[howwohmm]

+1 to the simple approach — hiding deprecated + pre-releases by default, no per-user settings for v1.

for pre-release detection, npm already defines these via semver (any version with a - suffix like 1.0.0-beta.1). semver.prerelease(version) reliably detects them without needing to parse tag names, which sidesteps the naming convention problem.

a single "show all versions" toggle at the top of the version list would be the simplest UI path. could store the preference in localStorage if you want it to persist across visits.

[ShroXd]

Ideas from @markerikson:

One edge case request: React annoyingly publishes experimental builds commit-first instead of date-first. Any nicer way to handle this one case? :)

really two ideas here:

• filter out or group non-stable builds
• sort by date rather than version string as an option

[ShroXd]

Summary of discussion

Based on the discussion and feedback, here is the plan:

Current tags

• Hide pre-release and non-stable tags by default
• Hidden tags should show a "N tags hidden — show all" notice to avoid confusion
• Add a "sort by date" toggle

Version history

• Hide pre-release versions by default
• Hide deprecated versions by default
• Both filters controlled via toggles in the top bar

Pre-release detection logic

Semver detection — any version with a - suffix (e.g. 6.0.0-beta.1) via semver.prerelease()

Note. No per-user settings for v1