This release contains dependency updates and defaults to Kubernetes 1.35.0. Please take note of the breaking changes from Kubernetes 1.35, and how to prepare for future changes to move off of the deprecated kubeam v1beta3 in favor of v1beta4. We will include updated reminders for both again in subsequent releases. Breaking Changes The default node image is now kindest/node:v1.35.0@sha256:452d707d4862f52530247495d180205e029056831160e22870e37e3f6c1ac31f Kubernetes 1.35+ Cgroup v1 Kubernetes will be removing cgroup v1 support, and therefore kind node images at those versions will also be dropping support. You can read more about this change in the Kubernetes release blog: https://kubernetes.io/blog/2025/12/17/kubernetes-v1-35-release/#removal-of-cgroup-v1-support If you must use kind on cgroup v1, we recommend using an older Kubernetes release for the immediate future, but we also strongly recommend migrating to cgroup v2. In the near future as Kubernetes support dwindles, KIND will also clean up cgroup v1 workarounds and drop support in future kind releases and images, regardless of Kubernetes version. Most stable linux distros should be on cgroupv2 out of the box. This is a reminder to use pinned images by digest, see the note below about images for this release. Kubeadm Config Future Breaking Change WARNING: Future kind releases will adopt kubeadm v1beta4 configuration, kubeadm v1beta4 has a breaking change to extraArgs: https://kubernetes.io/blog/2024/08/23/kubernetes-1-31-kubeadm-v1beta4/. If you use the kubeadmConfigPatches feature then you may need to prepare for this change. We recommend that you use versioned config patches that explicitly match the version required. KIND uses kubeadm v1beta3 for Kubernetes 1.23+, and will likely use v1beta4 for Kubernetes 1.36+ The exact version is TBD pending work to fix this but expected to be 1.36. It will definitely be an as-of-yet-unreleased Kubernetes version to avoid surprises, and it will not be on a patch-release boundary. KIND may still work with older Kubernetes versions at v1beta2, but we no longer test or actively support these as Kubernetes only supports 1.32+ currently: https://kubernetes.io/releases/ You likely only need v1beta3 + v1beta4 patches, you can take your existing patches that work with v1beta3, explicitly set apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3 in the patch at the top level, and make another copy for v1beta4. The v1beta4 patch will need to move extraArgs from a map to a list, for examples see: https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/config-api/kubeadm-config.v1beta4/ For a concrete example of kind config with kubeadm config patch targeting both v1beta3 and v1beta4, consider this simple kind config that sets verbosity of the apiserver logs: kind: Cluster apiVersion: kind.x-k8s.io/v1alpha4 kubeadmConfigPatches:

patch for v1beta3 (1.23 ...)

• | kind: ClusterConfiguration apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3 apiServer: extraArgs: "v": "4"

patch for v1beta4 (future)

• | kind: ClusterConfiguration apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta4 apiServer: extraArgs: - name: "v" value: "4"

If you only need to target a particular release, you can use one version. If you only need to target fields that did not change between kubeadm beta versions, you can use a versionless patch, which may be more convenient, but we cannot guarantee there will be no future kubeadm config breaking changes. New Features

• Assorted unspecified dependency updates Images pre-built for this release:
• v1.35.0: kindest/node:v1.35.0@sha256:452d707d4862f52530247495d180205e029056831160e22870e37e3f6c1ac31f
• v1.34.3: kindest/node:v1.34.3@sha256:08497ee19eace7b4b5348db5c6a1591d7752b164530a36f855cb0f2bdcbadd48
• v1.33.7: kindest/node:v1.33.7@sha256:d26ef333bdb2cbe9862a0f7c3803ecc7b4303d8cea8e814b481b09949d353040
• v1.32.11: kindest/node:v1.32.11@sha256:5fc52d52a7b9574015299724bd68f183702956aa4a2116ae75a63cb574b35af8
• v1.31.14: kindest/node:v1.31.14@sha256:6f86cf509dbb42767b6e79debc3f2c32e4ee01386f0489b3b2be24b0a55aac2b NOTE: You must use the @sha256 digest to guarantee an image built for this release, until such a time as we switch to a different tagging scheme. Even then we will highly encourage digest pinning for security and reproducibility reasons. See also:
• https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user/quick-start/#creating-a-cluster
• https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/docs/user/quick-start/#building-images NOTE: These node images support amd64 and arm64, both of our supported platforms. You must use the same platform as your host, for more context see https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kind/issues/2718 Fixes
• Detect additional edge case with ipv6 support on the host
• Make development / release scripts GOTOOLCHAIN aware Contributors Committers for this release:
• @AkihiroSuda
• @adambkaplan
• @afbjorklund
• @aoxn
• @BenTheElder
• @dependabot[bot]
• @k8s-ci-robot
• @kalexmills
• @kishen-v
• @mikejoh
• @rayowang
• @shahar1
• @stmcginnis