Switch over to using the versioned file

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ This document is formatted according to the principles of [Keep A CHANGELOG](htt
 Please visit [cucumber/CONTRIBUTING.md](https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md) for more info on how to contribute to Cucumber.
 
 ## [Unreleased]
+### Added
+- Moved the version definition to `lib/cucumber/core/version.rb` and updated the gemspec to use `Cucumber::Core::VERSION`
 
 ## [20.0.0] - 2026-10-09
 ### Changed

cucumber-core.gemspec

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 # frozen_string_literal: true
 
-version = File.read(File.expand_path('VERSION', __dir__)).strip
+require_relative 'lib/cucumber/core/version'
 
 Gem::Specification.new do |s|
   s.name        = 'cucumber-core'
-  s.version     = version
+  s.version     = Cucumber::Core::VERSION
   s.authors     = ['Aslak Hellesøy', 'Matt Wynne', 'Steve Tooke', 'Oleg Sukhodolsky', 'Tom Brand']
   s.description = 'Core library for the Cucumber BDD app'
   s.summary     = "cucumber-core-#{s.version}"

lib/cucumber/core/version.rb

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+# frozen_string_literal: true
+
+module Cucumber
+  module Core
+    VERSION = '20.0.0'
+  end
+end