Here is a list of different places in LightGBM's GitHub repo where we specify some dependencies or helpers. Quite often we should specify a particular version of such software. And these versions are tend to obsolete with time. If you see that there is a newer version comparing to what we have, please feel free to propose a PR with updates or simply leave a comment here.

• SHAs of commits of third-party dependencies in the external_libs folder. If there are some checkpoints (markers of stable versions) of these libraries, e.g. Releases at GitHub, the most recent stable release should be used (not the unstable latest master commit). If there are no such indicators of stable commit, use the latest available one. How to update GitHub submodules.
• SHAs of commits OpenCL libraries integration (same notes about versions as above):
  1.

  LightGBM/CMakeIntegratedOpenCL.cmake

  Lines 5 to 6 in f997a06

  	set(OPENCL_HEADER_REPOSITORY "https://github.com/KhronosGroup/OpenCL-Headers.git")
  	set(OPENCL_HEADER_TAG "1b2a1850f410aaaaeaa56cead5a179b5aea4918e")

  
  2.

  LightGBM/CMakeIntegratedOpenCL.cmake

  Lines 8 to 9 in f997a06

  	set(OPENCL_LOADER_REPOSITORY "https://github.com/KhronosGroup/OpenCL-ICD-Loader.git")
  	set(OPENCL_LOADER_TAG "98ca71fb9f8484f1cd1999f55224bf9e8d18693b")

  
  3.

  LightGBM/CMakeIntegratedOpenCL.cmake

  Lines 11 to 12 in f997a06

  	set(BOOST_REPOSITORY "https://github.com/boostorg/boost.git")
  	set(BOOST_TAG "boost-${BOOST_VERSION_DOT}.0")

• Visual Studio version for OpenCL libraries integration

  LightGBM/CMakeIntegratedOpenCL.cmake

  Lines 66 to 68 in f997a06

  	if(MSVC)
  	if(${MSVC_VERSION} GREATER 1929)
  	message(FATAL_ERROR "Unrecognized MSVC version number: ${MSVC_VERSION}")

• MinGW w64 version at Appveyor

  LightGBM/.appveyor.yml

  Line 26 in f997a06

  - set PATH=C:\mingw-w64\x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh-rt_v6-rev0\mingw64\bin;%PATH%

• PublishBuildArtifacts Azure Pipelines task (multiple occurrences, do search the file for PublishBuildArtifacts keyword)
• macOS image version at Azure Pipelines (Attention! Should be the oldest available, not the newest one)

  LightGBM/.vsts-ci.yml

  Line 144 in f997a06

  vmImage: 'macOS-10.14'

• Xcode version in Azure Pipelines macOS image (Attention! Should be the oldest available, not the newest one), also make updates in the Python installation guide about that this version is used for Python-package wheels generation

  LightGBM/.ci/setup.sh

  Line 7 in f2695da

  sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode_9.4.1.app/Contents/Developer

• DownloadBuildArtifacts Azure Pipelines task

  LightGBM/.vsts-ci.yml

  Line 220 in f997a06

  - task: DownloadBuildArtifacts@0

• NuGetCommand Azure Pipelines task

  LightGBM/.vsts-ci.yml

  Line 228 in f997a06

  - task: NuGetCommand@2

• PublishBuildArtifacts Azure Pipelines task

  LightGBM/.vsts-ci.yml

  Line 233 in f997a06

  - task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1

• GitHubRelease Azure Pipelines task

  LightGBM/.vsts-ci.yml

  Line 238 in f997a06

  - task: GitHubRelease@0

• CMake minimum required version and minimum supported versions of different compilers (including CUDA) in CMakeLists.txt in case of adding new breaking changes in the CPP code of LightGBM (also, make updates in the installation guide and in the Python installation guide)
• Regenerate files in Visual Studio solution folder in case of bumping minimum required version of MSVC++
• Checkout repository GitHub Action (multiple occurrences, do search in the .github/workflows folder for actions/checkout keyword in all files)
• NVIDIA CUDA Docker versions

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/cuda.yml

  Lines 25 to 37 in 65349b4

  	include:
  	- method: source
  	compiler: gcc
  	python_version: 3.7
  	cuda_version: "11.2.0"
  	- method: pip
  	compiler: clang
  	python_version: 3.8
  	cuda_version: "10.0"
  	- method: wheel
  	compiler: gcc
  	python_version: 3.9
  	cuda_version: "9.0"

• upload-artifact GitHub Action

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/r_artifacts.yml

  Line 48 in f2695da

  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2

• setup-pandoc GitHub Action

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/r_package.yml

  Line 119 in f2695da

  uses: r-lib/actions/setup-pandoc@v1

• Versions of Visual Studio for R-package tests (two latest available versions)

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/r_package.yml

  Lines 69 to 70 in f2695da

  	# Visual Studio 2017
  	- os: windows-2016

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/r_package.yml

  Lines 76 to 77 in f2695da

  	# Visual Studio 2019
  	- os: windows-2019

• Version of the GitHub REST API (multiple occurrences, do search for application/vnd.github keyword in the repo)
• List of linters for R-package linting script file
• Entire Dockerfile(s) in the lightgbm-ci-docker repository that are used in our CI environments
• OpenCL AMD App SDK for Windows (new file should be uploaded to Releases page of the repo)

  LightGBM/.ci/install_opencl.ps1

  Line 3 in f2695da

  $installer = "AMD-APP-SDKInstaller-v3.0.130.135-GA-windows-F-x64.exe"

• OpenCL AMD App SDK for Linux (new file should be uploaded to Releases page of the repo)

  LightGBM/.ci/setup.sh

  Line 72 in f2695da

  wget -q https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/releases/download/v2.0.12/AMD-APP-SDKInstaller-v3.0.130.136-GA-linux64.tar.bz2

• SWIG for Windows (new file should be uploaded to Releases page of the repo)

  LightGBM/.ci/test_windows.ps1

  Line 44 in f2695da

  Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/releases/download/v2.0.12/swigwin-3.0.12.zip" -OutFile $env:BUILD_SOURCESDIRECTORY/swig/swigwin.zip -UserAgent "NativeHost"

• libboost from Martin Hierholzer's ppa

  LightGBM/.ci/setup.sh

  Line 70 in f2695da

  sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y libboost1.74-dev ocl-icd-opencl-dev

• gcc version that comes from brew on macOS

  LightGBM/.ci/test.sh

  Lines 4 to 5 in f2695da

  	export CXX=g++-10
  	export CC=gcc-10

• Three latest available macOS versions in the Python wheel filename

  LightGBM/.ci/test.sh

  Line 110 in f2695da

  mv dist/lightgbm-$LGB_VER-py3-none-macosx.whl dist/lightgbm-$LGB_VER-py3-none-macosx_10_14_x86_64.macosx_10_15_x86_64.macosx_11_0_x86_64.whl

• R 4.x version for Linux from R-project ppa

  LightGBM/.ci/test_r_package.sh

  Lines 30 to 32 in f2695da

  	export R_MAC_VERSION=4.0.3
  	export R_LINUX_VERSION="4.0.3-1.1804.0"
  	export R_APT_REPO="bionic-cran40/"

• R 4.x version for Windows from official CRAN site

  LightGBM/.ci/test_r_package_windows.ps1

  Line 49 in f2695da

  $env:R_WINDOWS_VERSION = "4.0.3"

• Rtools 4.x version for Windows (new file should be uploaded to Releases page of the repo)

  LightGBM/.ci/test_r_package_windows.ps1

  Line 48 in f2695da

  $env:RTOOLS_EXE_FILE = "rtools40-x86_64.exe"

• MiKTeX for Windows (new file should be uploaded to Releases page of the repo)

  LightGBM/.ci/test_r_package_windows.ps1

  Line 107 in f2695da

  Download-File-With-Retries "https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/releases/download/v2.0.12/miktexsetup-4.0-x64.zip" -destfile "miktexsetup-x64.zip"

• Minimum Autoconf version for R-package

  LightGBM/R-package/configure.ac

  Line 6 in d107872

  AC_PREREQ(2.69)

• Autoconf version for R-package
• Ubuntu version in which Autoconf should be run to generate configure file for R-package: https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/tree/master/R-package#changing-the-cran-package and

  LightGBM/.github/workflows/r_configure.yml

  Line 12 in 9388b2e

  container: "ubuntu:20.04"

• Versions of R-package dependencies

  LightGBM/R-package/DESCRIPTION

  Lines 45 to 57 in d107872

  	Suggests:
  	processx,
  	testthat
  	Depends:
  	R (>= 3.5),
  	R6 (>= 2.0)
  	Imports:
  	data.table (>= 1.9.6),
  	graphics,
  	jsonlite (>= 1.0),
  	Matrix (>= 1.1-0),
  	methods,
  	utils

• Version of {roxygen2} used in R-package docs

  • LightGBM/R-package/DESCRIPTION

    Line 66 in fb37e50

    RoxygenNote: 7.1.2

  • LightGBM/docs/env.yml

    Line 15 in fb37e50

    - r-roxygen2=7.1.2

• Supported versions of Visual Studio in R-package

  LightGBM/R-package/src/install.libs.R

  Lines 66 to 70 in d107872

  	vs_versions <- c(
  	"Visual Studio 16 2019"
  	, "Visual Studio 15 2017"
  	, "Visual Studio 14 2015"
  	)

• Minimum required versions of system dynamic libraries LightGBM links to in case of adding new breaking changes in the CPP code of LightGBM (also, make updates in the installation guide and in the Python installation guide)
• Azure Pipelines REST API version for artifacts downloading link

  LightGBM/docs/_static/js/script.js

  Line 41 in d107872

  'https://dev.azure.com/lightgbm-ci/lightgbm-ci/_apis/build/builds/' + data['value'][0]['id'] + '/artifacts?artifactName=PackageAssets&api-version=5.0-preview.5&%24format=zip');

• Minimum required version of libboost for GPU-version in CMakeLists.txt (also, make updates in the installation guide)

  LightGBM/CMakeLists.txt

  Line 137 in d107872

  find_package(Boost 1.56.0 COMPONENTS filesystem system REQUIRED)

• Minimum required version of OpenCL for GPU-version (multiple occurrences, do search for opencl keyword in the installation guide)
• Visual Studio mapping for Boost binaries in the installation guide
• Supported CUDA architectures in CMakeLists.txt for CUDA-version

  LightGBM/CMakeLists.txt

  Line 159 in d107872

  CUDA_SELECT_NVCC_ARCH_FLAGS(CUDA_ARCH_FLAGS 6.0 6.1 6.2 7.0 7.5+PTX)

• Read the Docs config file (version of config file; build section; adding new and removing deprecated config values)
• Minimum required version of Sphinx in case of adding new breaking changes in docs generating process

  LightGBM/docs/conf.py

  Line 77 in d107872

  needs_sphinx = '1.3' # Due to sphinx.ext.napoleon

• conda environment for building docs https://github.com/microsoft/LightGBM/blob/master/docs/env.yml
• Minimum required version of sphinx_rtd_theme for documentation generation in docs' folder README file (search for sphinx_rtd_theme; version should be the same as in conda environment)
• Suggested tag for RTD Docker image for generating documentation locally in docs' folder README file (search for readthedocs/build; tag should be the most recently released)
• Entire Dockerfiles in the docker folder
• Versions of Python-package dependencies

  LightGBM/python-package/setup.py

  Lines 338 to 350 in 9cc3777

  	install_requires=[
  	'wheel',
  	'numpy',
  	'scipy',
  	'scikit-learn!=0.22.0'
  	],
  	extras_require={
  	'dask': [
  	'dask[array]>=2.0.0',
  	'dask[dataframe]>=2.0.0'
  	'dask[distributed]>=2.0.0',
  	'pandas',
  	],

• Supported versions of Visual Studio in Python-package

  LightGBM/python-package/setup.py

  Line 183 in 9cc3777

  vs_versions = ("Visual Studio 16 2019", "Visual Studio 15 2017", "Visual Studio 14 2015")

• Supported versions of Visual Studio Platform Toolsets in Python-package

  LightGBM/python-package/setup.py

  Line 168 in 9cc3777

  platform_toolsets = ("v142", "v141", "v140")

• Supported Python versions (see [python][ci] start to support Python 3.8 #2713 for example how to start running tests with new Python version)

  LightGBM/python-package/setup.py

  Lines 373 to 376 in 9cc3777

  	'Programming Language :: Python :: 3',
  	'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.6',
  	'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7',
  	'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8',

• The oldest supported Python version (shouldn't be too strict just because that version reached EOL; it should reflect only known incompatibilities)
  

  LightGBM/python-package/setup.py

  Line 343 in d31346f

  python_requires='>=3.6',

• Google Test release tag

  LightGBM/CMakeLists.txt

  Lines 475 to 476 in 337103d

  	GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/google/googletest.git
  	GIT_TAG release-1.10.0