- Scheduler doesn't run plugin's Filter method when its PreFilter method returned a Skip status.
  In other words, your PreFilter/Filter plugin can return a Skip status in PreFilter if the plugin does nothing in Filter for that Pod.
  Scheduler skips NodeAffinity Filter plugin when NodeAffinity Filter plugin has nothing to do with a Pod.

- kubelet: the `--image-credential-provider-config` file was loaded with strict deserialization, which failed if the config file contained duplicate or unknown fields. This protected against accidentally running with malformed config files, unindented files, or typos in field names, and it prevented unexpected behavior. ([#128062](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128062), [@aramase](https://github.com/aramase))...

### API Change

- kube-proxy: a configuration file specified via `--config` is now loaded with strict deserialization, which fails if the config file contains duplicate or unknown fields. This protects against accidentally running with config files that are malformed, mis-indented, or have typos in field names, and getting unexpected behavior. ([#82927](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/82927), [@obitech](https...

- Fixed a bug where pv recycler failed to scrub volume with too many files in the directory due to hitting ARG_MAX limit with rm command (#117189). ([#117283](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117283), [@defo89](https://github.com/defo89)) [SIG Cloud Provider and Storage]

  * The `--audit-policy-file` option is required if the `AdvancedAuditing` feature is not explicitly turned off (`--feature-gates=AdvancedAuditing=false`) on the API server.
  * The audit log file defaults to JSON encoding when using the advanced auditing feature gate.
  * An audit policy file without either an `apiVersion` or a `kind` field may be treated as invalid.
  * The webhook and log file now output the `v1beta1` event format.

- Resolves spurious `Failed to list *v1.Secret` or `Failed to list *v1.ConfigMap` messages in kubelet logs. ([#99538](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99538), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt)) [SIG Auth and Node]

- Fixed an issue with the `garbagecollection` controller registering duplicate event handlers if discovery requests failed. ([#117992](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117992), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

- Scheduler extender filter interface now can report unresolvable failed nodes in the new field `FailedAndUnresolvableNodes` of  `ExtenderFilterResult` struct. Nodes in this map will be skipped in the preemption phase. ([#92866](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/92866), [@cofyc](https://github.com/cofyc))...

- Kube-apiserver: the `--encryption-provider-config` file is now loaded with strict deserialization, which fails if the config file contains duplicate or unknown fields. This protects against accidentally running with config files that are malformed, mis-indented, or have typos in field names, and getting unexpected behavior. When `--encryption-provider-config-automatic-reload` is used, new encryption config files that contain typos after the kube-apiserver is running are treated as...