Prerelease
Noun · Open Source
Definitions
A release published before official stable release, often marked alpha, beta, rc, or preview, to gather testing and feedback. In release culture, prereleases help teams learn earlier without pretending the software is fully ready.
In plain English: A release published before the final stable version.
Example: "They cut a prerelease so package maintainers and early adopters could test the migration path before the stable version landed."