Last Week in Kubernetes Development
Stay up-to-date on Kubernetes development in 15 minutes a week.
Week Ending October 19, 2025
Developer News
SIG-Etcd has found another potential upgrade failure preventing some users upgrading to etcd 3.6. The blog gives instructions on steps to avoid it, mainly updating to 3.5.24.
Release Schedule
Next Deadline: Docs Deadline for placeholder PRs, October 23
The deadline for opening your placeholder docs PRs is coming up soon. If you have a KEP tracked for v1.35, make sure that you have a placeholder PR in k/website for your docs before the deadline.
THe v1.35 Enhancements Freeze is in effect from October 17th. Out of the 101 KEPs opted in for the release, 75 made the cut for enhancements freeze.
Steering Committee Election
The Steering Committee Election voting ends later this week on Friday, 24th October, AoE. You can check your eligibility to vote in the voting app. Don’t forget to cast your votes if you haven’t already!
The deadline to file an exception request is 22nd October, AoE. Submit an exception request soon if you think you’re eligible!
KEP of the Week
KEP-4742: Expose Node Topology Labels via Downward API
This KEP introduces a built-in Kubernetes admission plugin that automatically copies node topology labels (like zone, region, or rack) onto Pods. It allows Pods to access this topology data through the Downward API without using privileged init containers or custom scripts. The change simplifies topology-aware workloads such as distributed AI/ML training, CNI optimizations, and sharded databases, making topology awareness a secure and native part of Kubernetes.
This KEP is tracked for beta in v1.35.
Other Merges
- Declarative validation tags have a StabilityLevel
- Test external VolumeGroupSnapshots in 1.35
- AllocationConfigSource is validated
- APF properly counts legacy watches
- Declarative Validation rollout: DeviceClassName, update, ResourceClaim, maxItems, DRA fields, DeviceAllocationMode
- Simplify kube-cross builds
Promotions
Deprecated
Version Updates
- Golang update: 1.24.9 in 1.31 through 1.34, 1.25.3 in 1.35
- etcd to v3.5.23, just in time to replace it with 3.5.24
Shoutouts
- Rayan Das – A big shout-out to the v1.35 Enhancements shadows ( @dchan @jmickey @aibarbetta @Subhasmita @Faeka Ansari) for their hard work leading up to Enhancements Freeze yesterday.
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