• Branch Cut / Feature Freeze: April 11th May 3rd, 2023
• Code Freeze / RC.0: May 3rd May 24th, 2023
• Expected Release Date: May 10th May 31st, 2023 June 5th 2023

• Paul Merrison - Tetrate.io (pmerrison)
• Kalya Subramanian - Microsoft (ksubrmnn)
• Xiaopeng Han - Daocloud (hanxiaop)

On April 11th, 2023, Istio 1.18 release managers will create the release-1.18 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-1.18' branch.

To merge a PR into the release-1.18 branch, you must first merge it into the master branch. To mark a PR for automatic cherrypicking, add the cherrypick/release-1.18 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 1.18.0 release candidate.
  • Any change not meeting the above, such as a new feature or API, will require TOC approval.