[ANNOUNCEMENT] v1.31 Enhancements Freeze in Effect / Upcoming Key Dates

[Sreeram Venkitesh]

Hi, Kubernetes community!

Enhancements Freeze just began 02:00 UTC Friday 14th June 2024.
 
Enhancements stats for v1.31: 

▶️ Enhancements opted-in for v1.31: 71

▶️ Enhancements tracked for v1.31: 54

⏹️ Enhancements removed from milestone after freeze: 7
 
Any KEPs that wish to join the v1.31 release must now have an approved Exception. Once approved, Enhancements will be entered into the tracking sheet by the Enhancements team. If you plan to submit an Exception request, please submit it as soon as possible.

For those with accepted Enhancements, please continue linking all k/k and k/website PRs to your k/enhancements tracking issue.

📣 Important FYI 📣

Each release, we choose a handful of high impact features to be ✨ major themes ✨. You can nominate an enhancement to be a major theme by adding a comment to the v1.31 Discussions on Github with links and a description of the feature. We kindly request that all SIG Leads and Technical Chairs participate in this collection!

Upcoming Key Dates:

- Thursday, 27th June 2024 : Docs deadline - Open placeholder PRs
- 02:00 UTC Wednesday 3rd July 2024 / 19:00 PDT Tuesday 2nd July 2024 : Feature blog freeze
- 02:00 UTC Wednesday 10th July 2024 / 19:00 PDT Tuesday 9th July 2024: Week 9 — Code Freeze
- Tuesday 16th July 2024 : Docs deadline - PRs ready for review  
- Tuesday 23rd July 2024 : Major Themes deadline  
- 01:00 UTC Wednesday 31st July 2024 / 19:00 PDT Tuesday 30th July 2024: Week 12 — Test Freeze
- Tuesday 30th July 2024: Week 12 — Docs Freeze
- Tuesday 13th August 2024: Week 14 — Kubernetes v1.31.0 release date

If you have any questions, please reach out to the Enhancements team at #enhancements or Release Team at #sig-release

Thank you! 

Sreeram Venkitesh
v1.31 Enhancements Lead