- Made `kubectl-convert` binary linking static (also affects the deb and rpm packages). ([#114228](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/114228), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert))
- Migrated controller helper functions to use contextual logging. ([#115049](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115049), [@fatsheep9146](https://github.com/fatsheep9146))

- Overall, enable the feature of `PreferNominatedNode` will  improve the performance of scheduling where preemption might frequently happen, but in theory, enable the feature of `PreferNominatedNode`, the pod might not be scheduled to the best candidate node in the cluster. ([#93179](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/93179), [@chendave](https://github.com/chendave)) [SIG Scheduling...

* Allows HorizontalPodAutoscaler to use global metrics not associated with any Kubernetes object (for example metrics from a hoster service running outside of Kubernetes cluster). ([#60096](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60096), [@MaciekPytel](https://github.com/MaciekPytel))

* Fix pods failing to start when subPath is a dangling symlink from kubelet point of view, which can happen if it is running inside a container ([#48555](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/48555), [@redbaron](https://github.com/redbaron))

- Pods which set `hostNetwork: true` and declare ports, get the `hostPort` field set automatically. Previously this would happen in the PodTemplate of a Deployment, DaemonSet or other workload API.  Now `hostPort` will only be set when an actual Pod is being created.  If this presents a problem, setting the feature gate "DefaultHostNetworkHostPortsInPodTemplates" to true will...

- Scheduler bugfix: Scheduler doesn't lose pod information when nodes are quickly recreated. This could happen when nodes are restarted or quickly recreated reusing a nodename. ([#93964](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/93964), [@alculquicondor](https://github.com/alculquicondor)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]

- Added new k8s.io/component-helpers repository providing shared helper code for (core) components. ([#92507](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/92507), [@ingvagabund](https://github.com/ingvagabund)) [SIG Apps, Node, Release and Scheduling]

up flag handling in component-base/logs: that package no longer adds flags to the global flag sets. Commands which want the klog and `--log-flush-frequency` flags must explicitly call `logs.AddFlags`; the new `cli.Run` does that for commands. That helper function also covers flag normalization and printing of usage and errors in a consistent way (print usage text first if parsing failed, then the error). ([#105076](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/105076), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly))...

- client-go: The `rest.AnonymousClientConfig(*rest.Config) *rest.Config` helper method no longer copies custom `Transport` and `WrapTransport` fields, because those can be used to inject user credentials. ([#75771](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/75771), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

- `apiserver_dropped_requests` -> `apiserver_dropped_requests_total`
- `etcd_helper_cache_hit_count` -> `etcd_helper_cache_hit_total`
- `etcd_helper_cache_miss_count` -> `etcd_helper_cache_miss_total`
- `etcd_helper_cache_entry_count` -> `etcd_helper_cache_entry_total`
- `etcd_request_cache_get_latencies_summary` -> `etcd_request_cache_get_latency_seconds`