• Branch Cut / Feature Freeze: October 17th, 2022
• Code Freeze: Nov 8th, 2022
• Expected Release Date: November 15th, 2022

• Daniel Hawton - solo.io (dhawton)
• Ziyang Xiao - Intel (ZiyangXiao)
• Tong Li - IBM (litong01)

On October 17th, 2022, Istio 1.16 release managers will create the release-1.16 branch based on master. It will include any changes merged into master prior to this date. For any changes after this date, you will need to work with the RMs to cherrypick it into 'release-1.16' branch.

To merge a PR into the release-1.16 branch, you must first merge it into the master branch. To mark a PR for automatic cherrypicking, add the cherrypick/release-1.16 label to the PR.

RMs will only approve a PR on the release branch if:

• The change has already merged into master.
  • exception: if a change only applies to the release branch, and should not go into master, you can submit a change directly to the release branch, but please explicitly note this in the PR description.
• The change consists solely of a bug fix, documentation enhancement, or testing enhancement.
  • Changes deemed risky may require a feature flag, especially after RM published the 1.16.0 release candidate.
  • Any change not meeting the above, such as a new feature or API, will require TOC approval.

Note: on the istio.io repo, changes should go directly to master until after the 1.16.0 launch. The changes will appear on preliminary istio.io.