Based on experiences with the last "staging" cycle and discussions at the most recent Guix Day meeting [0], we've changed the branching workflow.
The default branch names remain "core-updates" and "staging". When we begin actively building and testing the branches, they will be renamed to "core-updates-frozen" and "staging-frozen", respectively. This will indicate that they are closed to any changes except for bug fixes and merges of the master branch. During those periods, new patches can be pushed to "core-updates-next" and "staging-next". Hopefully these changes will clarify the status of the branches and reduce confusion. [0] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-02/msg00163.html
