The Etherum 1.x page is a good starting point for an overview of Working Groups and areas of focus.
Early flagging, discussion and implementation of EIPs for future forks can allow smoother planning.
Regular small hard forks allow upgrades to be included in more timely and manageable way that large infrequent forks, as described here
The fork will ideally follow an EIP-centric approach outlined here. This approach will allow EIPs to mature independently of forking schedule. When mature, they can be added to the next scheduled fork.
Steps for EIPs:
Previous hard fork details are summarised in this stack exchange question here
| Fork number | Block number | Date | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2015-07-30 | Frontier |
| 1 | 200000 | 2015-09-07 | Frontier Thawing |
| 2 | 1150000 | 2016-03-14 | Homestead |
| 3 | 1920000 | 2016-07-20 | DAO Fork |
| 4 | 2463000 | 2016-10-18 | Tangerine Whistle |
| 5 | 2675000 | 2016-11-22 | Spurious Dragon |
| 6 | 4370000 | 2017-10-16 | Byzantium |
| 7 | 7280000 | 2019-02-28 | Constantinople |
| 8 | TBD | TBD | Istanbul |
| 9 | TBD | TBD | Berlin |
| 10 | TBD | TBD | London |
| 11 | TBC | TBC | Shanghai |
| 12 | TBC | TBC | Devcon names thereafter |
Details to follow after Berlin fork is completed
Meta-EIP will be created following the Berlin fork.
The following EIPs have been loosely referenced for inclusion in a fork, and may be proposed by the EIP author at some point for inclusion in the London fork.
Review of the EIPs will be ongoing, those complete the following hurdles will progress
The next fork will be called Shanghai, in keeping with the DevCon location sequence.
The fork will consist of EIPs mature enough to go in, following the EIP-centric development cycle. Forks will preferentially be small and on-time rather than large and late, with the knowledge that regular forks allow almost-ready EIPs a concrete timeline for incorporation.