Drupal 8.7.0-alpha1 will be released the week of March 11

In preparation for the minor release, Drupal 8.7.x will enter the alpha phase the week of March 11, 2019. Core developers should plan to complete changes that are only allowed in minor releases prior to the alpha release. The 8.7.0-alpha1 deadline for most core patches is March 8. (More information on alpha and beta releases.)

• Developers and site owners can begin testing the alpha after its release.

• The 8.8.x branch of core will be created, and future feature and API additions will be targeted against that branch instead of 8.7.x. All outstanding issues filed against 8.7.x will be automatically migrated to 8.8.

• All issues filed against 8.6.x will then be migrated to 8.7.x, and subsequent bug reports should be targeted against the 8.7.x branch.

• During the alpha phase, core issues will be committed according to the following policy:

  1. Most issues that are allowed for patch releases will be committed to 8.7.x and 8.8.x.
  2. Most issues that are only allowed in minor releases will be committed to 8.8.x only. A few strategic issues may be backported to 8.7.x, but only at committer discretion after the issue is fixed in 8.8.x (so leave them set to 8.8.x unless you are a committer), and only up until the beta deadline.

Drupal 8.7.0-beta1 will be released the week of March 25

Roughly two weeks after the alpha release, the first beta release will be created. All the restrictions of the alpha release apply to beta releases as well. The release of the first beta is a firm deadline for all feature and API additions. Even if an issue is pending in the Reviewed & Tested by the Community (RTBC) queue when the commit freeze for the beta begins, it will be committed to the next minor release only.

The release candidate phase will begin the week of April 15, and we will post further details at that time. See the summarized key dates in the release cycle, allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle, and Drupal 8 backwards compatibility and internal API policy for more information.

Bugfixes and security support of Drupal 8.5.x and 8.6.x

Since September 2018, we have been providing security coverage for the previous minor release as well as the newest minor release.

So, in accordance with our policy, security releases for Drupal 8.6.x will be made available until December 4, 2019 when Drupal 8.8.0 is released. Bugfixes that are not security-related will only be committed until Drupal 8.6.x's final bugfix window on April 3.

Normal bugfix support for Drupal 8.5.x ended in August 2016. However security support is provided for 8.5.x until the release of Drupal 8.7.0 on May 1, 2019.