([#64248](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64248), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))

### SIG CLI

* You can now use the `base64decode` function in kubectl go templates to decode base64-encoded data, such as `kubectl get secret SECRET -o go-template='{{ .data.KEY | base64decode }}'`. ([#60755](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60755), [@glb](https://github.com/glb))

- The `apiserver.latency.k8s.io/decode-response-object` annotation was added to the audit log to record the decoding time. ([#121512](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121512), [@HirazawaUi](https://github.com/HirazawaUi))

- `kubeadm`: improved the logic that checks whether a `systemd` service exists. ([#120514](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120514), [@fengxsong](https://github.com/fengxsong))
- `kubeadm`: will now use universal deserializer to decode static pod. ([#120549](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120549), [@pacoxu](https://github.com/pacoxu))
- `kubectl prune v2`: Switched annotation from `contains-group-resources` to `contains-group-kinds`,

- The synthetic "Bookmark" event for the watch stream requests will now include a new annotation: `kubernetes.io/initial-events-list-blueprint`. THe annotation contains an empty, versioned list that is encoded in the requested format (such as protobuf, JSON, or CBOR), then base64-encoded and stored as a string. ([#127587](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127587), [@p0lyn0mial](https://github.com/p0lyn0mial)) [SIG API Machinery]

- Add a helper function to decode scheduler plugin args. ([#80696](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/80696), [@hex108](https://github.com/hex108))

* Allows changing nodeName in endpoint update. ([#68575](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/68575), [@prameshj](https://github.com/prameshj))
* kube-apiserver would return 400 Bad Request when it couldn't decode a json patch. ([#68346](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/68346), [@CaoShuFeng](https://github.com/CaoShuFeng))
    * kube-apiserver would return 422 Unprocessable Entity when a json patch couldn't be applied to one object.

* Protobuf serialization does not distinguish between `[]` and `null`.

expunged from the Kubelet API. ([#60314](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/60314))

* [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/49213](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/49213) sig-cluster-lifecycle has decided to phase out the cluster/ directory over the next couple of releases in favor of deployment automations maintained outside of the core repo and outside of kubernetes orgs. ([@kubernetes/sig-cluster-lifecycle-misc](https://github.com/orgs/kubernet...

- Demoted KEP-5278 feature gates `ClearingNominatedNodeNameAfterBinding` and `NominatedNodeNameForExpectation` to alpha from beta. ([#133293](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/133293), [@utam0k](https://github.com/utam0k)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]...