GitHub: What is a "wip" branch?

When I was browsing GitHub repositories I quite often saw "wip" branches (e.g. 3.1.0-wip). What does "wip" mean?

I couldn't find the answer anywhere - neither on Google nor on GitHub:help.

Solution 1:

Conventionally, "wip" stands for "work in progress".

Solution 2:

On GitHub, pull requests are prefixed by [WIP] to indicate that the pull requestor

1. has not yet finished his work on the code (thus, work in progress), but
2. looks for have some initial feedback (early-pull strategy), and
3. wants to use the continuous integration infrastructure of the project. For instance, GitHub Actions, TravisCI, CodeCov, and codacy.

More motivation for WIP pull requests is written by @ben straub at https://ben.straub.cc/2015/04/02/wip-pull-request/.

New Since Februrary 2019, GitHub offers draft pull requests, which make WIP more explicit: https://github.blog/2019-02-14-introducing-draft-pull-requests/