Drupal core is moving towards using a main branch. As an interim step, a new 11.x branch has been opened, since Drupal.org infrastructure cannot fully support a Drupal core branch named main currently. This will bring Drupal in line with many other projects.
Before: Moving development branch
Drupal core previously opened a new minor branch (like 10.2.x) each time the previous minor released its first alpha (like 10.1.0-alpha1). This ensured that developers could immediately work on the next minor development version, but it made the most recent branch a moving target that changed every six months.
From 10.1 onwards, we will change our branch naming strategy, for the following reasons:
- Make it easier for developers to choose the correct branch for issues.
- Remove noise on issues from the automated comments created when a branch is opened.
- Remove the overhead from issue bulk updates for branch changes.
- Reduce merge conflicts and merge request permission problems caused by target branch changes.
After: Introducing the 11.x branch
This new 11.x branch will be used as the main development trunk until Drupal.org supports the main branch name. Future feature and API additions will be targeted against the 11.x branch. All outstanding issues filed against 10.1.x will be automatically migrated to 11.x.
The 10.2.x branch will be opened from 11.x prior to 10.2.0.
Comparing the old and new branching model. View a bigger version.
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From now on, all patches and merge requests should be submitted to 11.x. Changes will be cherry-picked or backported from 11.x to minor branches as required. Backport versions of patches and merge requests can still be posted against specific branches.
Despite the branch name, Drupal 11 development is not yet open. The 11.x branch will still accept only minor-version allowed changes until Drupal 11 development begins.. When Drupal 11 development begins, we will branch the next Drupal 10 minor branch prior to the Drupal 11 alpha development phase, and only then will 11.x will allow Drupal-11-specific changes.
There is currently a 'stub' 11.0.x branch for holding 11.x-only issues that can't be worked on yet. These issues will also be moved to the 11.x branch, and we will use an [11.x] title prefix and 'Major version only' issue tag to distinguish them. 11.0.x will then be opened properly when we're ready to tag an alpha release.
We will rename the 11.x branch to main when possible.