Development Focus ----------------- We are getting close to the end of the 2026.1 Gazpacho cycle! Next week on February 26th, 2026 is the Gazpacho-3 milestone, also known as feature freeze. It's time to wrap up feature work in the services and their client libraries, and defer features that won't make it to the 2026.2 Hibiscus cycle. General Information ------------------- This coming week is the deadline for client libraries: their last feature release needs to happen before "Client library freeze" on February 26th, 2026. Only bugfix releases will be allowed beyond this point. When requesting those library releases, you can also include the stable/2026.1 branching request with the review. As an example, see the "branches" section here: https://opendev.org/openstack/releases/src/branch/master/deliverables/pike/o... February 26th, 2026 is also the deadline for feature work in all OpenStack deliverables following the cycle-with-rc model. To help those projects produce a first release candidate in time, only bugfixes should be allowed in the master branch beyond this point. Any feature work past that deadline has to be raised as a Feature Freeze Exception (FFE) and approved by the team PTL. Finally, feature freeze is also a good time for submitting a first version of your cycle-highlights. Cycle highlights are the raw data that helps shape what is communicated in press releases and other release activity at the end of the cycle, avoiding direct contacts from marketing folks. See https://docs.openstack.org/project-team-guide/release-management.html#cycle-... for more details. Upcoming Deadlines & Dates -------------------------- Gazpacho-3 milestone (feature freeze): February 26th, 2026 (R-5 week) RC1 deadline: March 12th, 2026 (R-3 week) Final RC deadline: March 26th, 2026 (R-1 week) Final 2026.1 "Gazpacho" release: April 1st, 2026 2026.2 "Hibiscus" (virtual) PTG: April 20-24, 2026 Előd Illés irc: elodilles @ #openstack-release