Drupal has announced a significant change in its core branching scheme. The development team has introduced a new 11.x branch as an interim step towards adopting a main branch, aligning with the practices of many other projects. This change aims to streamline development processes and enhance clarity for developers working on Drupal core.

Previously, Drupal core followed a branching strategy where a new minor branch, such as 10.2.x, was opened when the previous minor release reached its first alpha version, like 10.1.0-alpha1. Although this allowed immediate progress on the next minor version, it resulted in a moving target as the most recent branch changed every six months.

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To address these challenges and improve efficiency, Drupal will implement a revised branch naming strategy starting from version 10.1. The primary objectives include simplifying branch selection for issue tracking, reducing noise generated by automated comments during branch openings, minimizing overhead from bulk updates due to branch changes, and mitigating merge conflicts and permission problems related to target branch modifications.

The introduction of the 11.x branch marks a significant milestone in this new scheme. The 11.x branch will serve as the primary development trunk until Drupal.org infrastructure fully supports the main branch name. All future feature additions and API developments will be directed towards the 11.x branch. As part of the transition, all outstanding issues filed against the 10.1.x branch will be automatically migrated to the 11.x branch.