Updating release blocking & informing alpha/beta coverage

[Benjamin Elder]

Hello all, following the process at https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/blob/master/release-blocking-jobs.md we, The SIG Testing TLs (including myself, Patrick Ohly, and Antonio Ojea), would like to update the release-informing and release-blocking dashboards comprehensively for the kind jobs that both enable alpha / beta features ("...-enabled"), and test alpha / beta feature test-cases ("...-features").

This is part of a broader effort to revamp alpha/beta coverage that has been ongoing throughout 2025, for more details on the broader effort see the tracking issue: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/131040 and linked issues, docs, discussions there.

Specifically we'd like to move the existing release-informing job here to release-blocking:
https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/issues/2889

• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-beta-features: Runs tests with no special requirements other than beta feature gates in a KinD cluster where beta feature gates and APIs are enabled

And we'd like to move the set of jobs here to release-informing: https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/issues/2888

• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-beta-enabled: Runs tests with no special requirements in a KinD cluster where beta feature gates and APIs are enabled, i.e. this does not include tests for off-by-default beta features.
• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-beta-enabled-conformance: Runs conformance tests in a KinD cluster where beta feature gates and APIs are enabled.
• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-alpha-beta-features: Runs tests with no special requirements other than alpha or beta feature gates in a KinD cluster where alpha and beta feature gates and APIs are enabled.
• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-alpha-beta-enabled: Runs tests with no special requirements in a KinD cluster where alpha and beta feature gates and APIs are enabled, i.e. this does not include tests for alpha features and off-by-default beta features.
• ci-kubernetes-e2e-kind-alpha-beta-conformance: Runs conformance tests in a KinD cluster where alpha and beta feature gates and APIs are enabled.

We believe this set of jobs will narrow the gap on alpha/beta coverage, particularly of non-default-enabled features/APIs and expedite identifying regressions.

These jobs are reliable option variations on the same core we've been using for many releases now.

Full details are provided per the guidelines in the linked issues.

Thank you,
Ben