### Bug or Regression

- Avoid GCE API calls when initializing GCE CloudProvider for Kubelets.

### Feature

- Added 3 new metrics for monitoring async API calls in the scheduler when the `SchedulerAsyncAPICalls` feature gate was enabled:
    - `scheduler_async_api_call_execution_total`: tracks executed API calls by call type and result (success/error)
    - `scheduler_async_api_call_duration_seconds`: histogram of API call execution duration by call type and result

* Audit logs might impact the API server performance and the latency of large request and response calls. The issue is observed under the following conditions: if `AdvancedAuditing` feature gate is enabled, which is the default case, if audit logging uses the log backend in JSON format, or if the audit policy records large API calls for requests or responses.

For more information, see [#51899](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/51899).

- Fixed two regressions introduced by the `PodDisruptionConditions` feature (on by default in 1.26):
  - pod eviction API calls returned spurious precondition errors and required a second evict API call to succeed

- Validation rules for Custom Resource Definitions can be written in the [CEL expression lang...

  - Speed up binpacking by reducing the number of PreFilter calls (call once per pod instead of #pods*#nodes times)
  - Speed up finding unneeded nodes by 5x+ in very large clusters by reducing the number of PreFilter calls
  - Expose `--max-nodes-total` as a metric
  - Errors in `IncreaseSize` changed from type `apiError` to `cloudProviderError`

- Added alpha support for asynchronous Pod preemption.
  When the `SchedulerAsyncPreemption` feature gate is enabled, the scheduler now runs API calls to trigger preemptions asynchronously for better performance. ([#128170](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128170), [@sanposhiho](https://github.com/sanposhiho)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]

    - [CSI Service Account Token](#csi-service-account-token)
    - [CSI Health Monitoring](#csi-health-monitoring)
  - [Known Issues](#known-issues)
    - [<code>TopologyAwareHints</code> feature falls back to default behavior](#topologyawarehints-feature-falls-back-to-default-behavior)
  - [Urgent Upgrade Notes](#urgent-upgrade-notes)
    - [(No, really, you MUST read this before you upgrade)](#no-really-you-must-read-this-before-you-upgrade)

## Before Upgrading

Consider the following changes, limitations, and guidelines before you upgrade:

### **API Machinery**

*   The admission API, which is used when the API server calls admission control webhooks, is moved from `admission.v1alpha1` to `admission.v1beta1`. You must **delete any existing webhooks before you upgrade** your cluster, and update them to use the latest API. This change is not backward compatible.

### Client
* Use Prometheus instrumentation conventions ([#36704](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/36704), [@fabxc](https://github.com/fabxc))
* Clients now use the `?watch=true` parameter to make watch API calls, instead of the `/watch/` path prefix ([#41722](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/41722), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))