Gardener Review Meetings (2026)

In case you couldn't participate and are interested in catching up, you can find the contents of the review meetings we have had in 2026 here.

Meetings are recorded and published on Gardener's YouTube channel.

Check back regularly for updates and upcoming topics!

Reviews

2026/03/04 - v1.137 Release

📽️ Recording

Demo Agenda 📋

Presenter(s)	Duration	Topic	Reference(s)
@rfranzke	5m	🏠 GEPs Moved to New gardener/enhancements Repository	#14043
@rfranzke	5m	🔑 Secrets Manager: Config Functions and Lazy CA Loading	#14000
@rrhubenov	10m	🪵 VictoriaLogsBackend Feature Gate	#13988
@ScheererJ	5m	🖥️ Node-Specific Configuration Files in gardener-node-agent	#13412
@LucaBernstein	5m	📦 Go Submodule for Gardener APIs	#13536

No Demo, But Still Worth Celebrating 🎉

• 🪓 [DEVELOPER] When using ModeService in the extension webhook library, the specified service port is now properly propagated when constructing the admissionregistrationv1.WebhookClientConfig for {Validating,Mutating}WebhookConfigurations (previously, it was not specified at all and defaulted to 443 by Kubernetes). Make sure to specify --webhook-config-service-port to prevent falling back to the --webhook-config-server-port (if configured). #14063
• 🐛 [OPERATOR] Fixed the shoot-care controller panic for clusters where .status.credentials.rotation exists but .status.credentials.encryptionAtRest is nil. #14147
• 🐛 [OPERATOR] An issue causing the control-plane migration to get stuck if the source backup entry deployment was retried is now fixed. #14091
• 🐛 [USER] An issue which lead to a nil pointer in gardenlet when a Shoot had an empty .spec.addons structure defined is now fixed. #14112

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2026/02/18 - v1.136 Release

📽️ Recording

Demo Agenda 📋

Presenter(s)	Duration	Topic	Reference(s)
@oliver-goetz	5m	📝 kube-apiserver Access Logs	#13569
@maxmsap	5m	🧲 provider-ironcore: Experimental GPU Support	ironcore-dev/roadmap#31
@rfranzke	5m	📣 Manifest Propagation To Shoots	#13614
@vitanovs	10m	♻️ InPlaceOrRecreate VPA Update Mode Webhook	#12940, #13573
@DockToFuture	5m	🤝 Seamless Overlay Network Switch	networking-calico#779, aws-custom-route-controller#411
@shafeeqes	5m	🪪 Custom CA Bundle Support For Helm Repositories	#13868
@timuthy	5m	➕ Leftover Toleration During Shoot Cleanup	#13918

No Demo, But Still Worth Celebrating 🎉

• ✨ [USER] Shoot addons (.spec.addons) have been deprecated and will be forbidden starting with Kubernetes 1.35. Their usage was already discouraged for productive clusters, as they now only include unmaintained components (Kubernetes dashboard and Ingress NGINX Controller). #13845
• ✨ [USER] The Shoot field .spec.seedSelector can now be adjusted for already scheduled shoots, as long as the new selector still selects the assigned seed. #13920
• ✨ [OPERATOR] The gardener-controller-manager now increases all ResourceQuotas in project namespaces when a Gardener update leads to Gardener creating more resources in them. This was introduced to prevent failing Shoot reconciliations when ResourceQuotas of projects are near their limit. #13850

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2026/01/28 - v1.135 Release

📽️ Recording

Demo Agenda 📋

Presenter(s)	Duration	Topic	Reference(s)
@AleksandarSavchev	5m	🔑 Automatic Credentials Rotation During Shoot Maintenance	#13493
@LucaBernstein	5m	🩹 TokenRequestor: Remediate Outdated ServiceAccount Tokens	#13630
@domdom82	10m	🔄 HA VPN Round-Robin Bonding Mode	#13649
@vpnachev	5m	🪪 WorkloadIdentity Support For DNS	#13720, #13680, #13469
@vicwicker	10m	🩺 Prometheus Health Checks In Care Controllers	#13341
@kon-angelo	5m	🧑‍💼 ManagedResource Support In Generic ControlPlane Actuator	#13585
@marc1404	5m	☸️ Kubernetes Minor Version Retention	#13471

No Demo, But Still Worth Celebrating 🎉

• ✨ [OPERATOR] gardenlet can now propagate static manifests stored in the seed cluster's garden namespace to all shoot namespaces. Read all about it here. #13614
• ✨ [DEVELOPER] The generic control-plane webhook is now capable of ensuring the kube-apiserver and kube-controller-manager Deployments, as well as etcds, of the virtual garden cluster. #13635
• ✨ [DEPENDENCY] CredentialsBindings can now reference core.gardener.cloud/v1beta1.InternalSecret resources. Provider extensions should start validating them similar to references for v1.Secret resources. #13759

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2026/01/21 - Kubernetes v1.34 Special Edition

📽️ Recording

Demo Agenda 📋

Presenters: @ScheererJ, @tobschli

Duration	Topic	Reference(s)
25m	🎓 Graduation Ceremony Graduated Features	KEP-4381, KEP-3939, KEP-1790, KEP-3751, KEP-5080, KEP-4601, KEP-3331, KEP-4633, KEP-3960, KEP-4818, KEP-2400, KEP-4033
15m	🌸 Beta Bloom Alpha -> Beta Promotions	KEP-4412, KEP-740, KEP-3104, KEP-2837, KEP-3962, KEP-5073, KEP-1287
10m	🗞️ Fresh Off The Press New Alpha Features	KEP-5295, KEP-4317, KEP-5307, KEP-3721
5m	🧼 Security, Deprecations & Removals	KEP-4033, KEP-3015
5m	🪴 What's Changing In Gardener	#12814, #12883