Version support

Review the following information about supported release versions for kgateway.

Supported versions

* Gateway API versions: The kgateway project is conformant to the Kubernetes Gateway API specification. For more details, see the Gateway API docs and kgateway conformance report per version, such as Gateway API v1.2.1.

† Istio versions: Istio must run on a compatible version of Kubernetes. For example, Istio 1.22 is tested, but not supported, on Kubernetes 1.26. For more information, see the Istio docs.

Release cadence

Stable builds for kgateway are released as minor versions approximately every three months. A stable branch for a minor version, such as 2.0, is tagged from main, and stable builds are supported from that branch.

Release development

New features for kgateway are developed on main and available as development builds. Stable branches are created off of main for each minor version, such as v2.0.x.

Release process

Development of a quality stable release on main typically follows this process:

1. New feature development is suspended on main.
2. Release candidates are created, such as 2.0.0-rc1, 2.0.0-rc2, and so on.
3. A full suite of tests is performed for each release candidate. Testing includes all documented workflows, a test matrix of all supported platforms, and more.
4. Documentation for that release is prepared, vetted, and staged.
5. The stable minor version is released as part of a stable branch, such as v2.0.x.
6. Feature development on main is resumed.

Feature development on main branch

Feature development for kgateway is performed on the main branch. Upon a merge to main, a development build is automatically released. The current development release is 2.1.0-main.

Backports to stable branches

New features are not developed on or backported to stable branches, such as v2.0.x. However, critical patches, bug fixes, and documentation fixes are backported as needed.