Kubernetes 1.35 State of the Release - Mid-Cycle Update
Drew Hagen
Greetings Kubernetes community,
We would like to share a mid-cycle update regarding the state of the Kubernetes 1.35 release.
TL;DR: 59 enhancements post-Code Freeze. Please be aware of the upcoming deadlines below.
We are 10 weeks into the Kubernetes 1.35 release, which started on September 17th. The Enhancements Freeze took place on October 16th, the Code Freeze took place on November 6th, and we are about a month away from the planned release of Kubernetes 1.35 on Wednesday December 17th.
Past dates (v1.35 release schedule):
- Feature blog freeze - Opt In Deadline - Thursday 30th October 2025 (AoE) / Friday 31st October 2025, 12:00 UTC (Opening a draft placeholder PR is required for opting in)
- Code Freeze and Test Freeze - Thursday 6th November 2025 (AoE) / Friday 7th November 2025, 12:00 UTC
Upcoming important dates (v1.35 release schedule)
- Docs deadline — PRs ready for review - Tuesday 18th November 2025 (AoE)
- Docs Freeze - Tuesday 2nd December 2025 (AoE) / Wednesday 3rd December 2025, 12:00 UTC
- Feature blogs ready to review - Monday 24th November 2025 (AoE)
Enhancements
We are now tracking 59 enhancements post-Code Freeze, with 12 exceptions filed and 7 exception requests approved. You can see all enhancements we are currently tracking on the Github project board.
Feature Blogs
Writing a feature blog is a great way to highlight and share information about your enhancement with the community. Feature blogs are especially encouraged for high visibility changes as well as deprecations and removals. To opt-in, create a placeholder PR and request your SIG Lead to add the placeholder PR to the corresponding row on Comms team’s Github board. The feature blogs official deadline has passed, but we are still open for opt-in. If you are interested in writing a blog for your enhancement, please create placeholder PR and contact your lead ASAP.
If you have opted in, please make sure your blog is ready for review by the Monday 24th November 2025 (AoE).
If you have any questions, please reach out to the comms team in the #release-comms Slack channel!
Documentation
Unless the KEP changes do not require any updates to the website, please open a PR against the `dev-1.35` branch on `kubernetes/website. ' Instructions to create a placeholder PR are here. All enhancements that are determined to require documentation must have their docs PRs in a `ready-to-review` state this week, Tuesday 18th November 2025 (AoE), and in a `ready-to-merge` state by the Docs Freeze - Tuesday 2nd December 2025 (AoE) / Wednesday 3rd December 2025, 12:00 UTC.
Release highlights
For each release, we choose high-impact features to highlight an important part of the release that provides a bird's eye view of improvements, breaking or user-facing changes that are coming as part of the upcoming release. We kindly ask that all SIG Leads and Technical Chairs join in the GitHub discussion before the deadline.
The beta release cut is planned for later this week on Wednesday 19th November 2025.
Lastly, we thank the SIG leads, KEP authors, PRR reviewers, Blog/Doc reviewers and other contributors for their continuous commitment and hard work!
For any questions or feedback, please reach out to us on #sig-release.
Thanks again,
Drew Hagen,