Why Kubernetes Is Shifting to a Three‑Release‑Per‑Year Cadence

Kubernetes' official blog announced that the release team has merged a Kubernetes Enhancement Proposal (KEP) to change the release cadence from four to three versions per year. The change aims to reduce the burden on contributors and release teams as the project matures and to ease the upgrade pressure on downstream users and vendors.

The new policy also reduces SIG release and team overhead, allowing more focus on improving release quality and tooling.

What are the specific changes?

Starting with Kubernetes 1.22, a lightweight policy will drive the creation of each release plan, specifying:

A first Kubernetes version of the calendar year should start in the second or third week of January, giving people space after the winter break.

The last Kubernetes version of the calendar year should be completed by mid‑December.

The release cycle length is about 15 weeks.

The week of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon is not counted as a SIG “working week”; no meetings or decisions are made then.

At least a two‑week explicit SIG release pause is enforced between cycles.

Thus Kubernetes will follow a three‑release‑per‑year rhythm, with 1.23 being the final release of 2021. The following schedule, based on the policy, shows the projected start and end dates for each release.

These dates reflect only start and end dates and may change; the release team will set freeze dates and other milestones for each release. The policy does not constitute an LTS. For full details, see the official blog post.