* set EnableHTTPSTrafficOnly in azure storage account creation ([#64957](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64957), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Rework Kubelet set `/etc/hosts` behavior to fix conformance testability ([#61613](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61613), [@dims](https://github.com/dims))

### SIG CLI

SIG CLI's main focus this release was on refactoring `kubectl` internals to improve composability, readability and testability of `kubectl` commands. Those refactors will allow the team to extract a mechanism for extensibility of kubectl -- that is, plugins -- in the next releases.

### SIG Cluster Lifecycle

- kube-proxy metrics are now marked as with the ALPHA stability level. ([#81626](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81626), [@logicalhan](https://github.com/logicalhan))

- Change `pod_preemption_victims` metric from Gauge to Histogram. ([#83603](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/83603), [@Tabrizian](https://github.com/Tabrizian))
- Following metrics from kubelet are now marked as with the ALPHA stability level:

    - [CustomResourceDefinition Defaulting](#customresourcedefinition-defaulting)
    - [CustomResourceDefinition OpenAPI Publishing](#customresourcedefinition-openapi-publishing)
  - [Cluster Lifecycle Stability and Usability Improvements](#cluster-lifecycle-stability-and-usability-improvements)
  - [Continued improvement of CSI](#continued-improvement-of-csi)
    - [Additional Notable Feature Updates](#additional-notable-feature-updates)

SIG Scalability has mostly focused on stability and deflaking our tests, investing into framework for writing scalability tests (ClusterLoader v2) with a goal to migrate all tests to it by the end of 2018 and on the work towards extending definition of Kubernetes scalability by providing more/better user-friendly SLIs/SLOs.

### SIG Scheduling

- Kube-apiserver: Fixed a `1.27`+ regression in watch stability by serving watch requests without a `resourceVersion` from the watch cache by default, as in <`1.27` (disabling the change in PR 115096 by default). This mitigates the impact of an etcd watch bug (https://github.com/etcd-io/etcd/pull/17555). If the 1.27 change in PR 115096 to serve these requests from underlying storage is still desired despite the impact on watch stability, it can be re-enabled with a `WatchFromStorageWithoutResourceVersion`...

- Kube-apiserver: fixes a 1.27+ regression in watch stability by serving watch requests without a resourceVersion from the watch cache by default, as in <1.27 (disabling the change in #115096 by default). This mitigates the impact of an etcd watch bug (https://github.com/etcd-io/etcd/pull/17555). If the 1.27 change in #115096 to serve these requests from underlying storage is still desired despite the impact on watch stability, it can be re-enabled with a `WatchFromStorageWithoutResourceVersion`...

### Bug or Regression

- Fixed a bug where a high churn of events was causing master instability by reducing the maximum number of objects (events) attached to a single etcd lease. ([#100452](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/100452), [@mborsz](https://github.com/mborsz)) [SIG API Machinery and Instrumentation]

### Apps

The core workloads API, which is composed of the DaemonSet, Deployment, ReplicaSet, and StatefulSet kinds, has been promoted to GA stability in the apps/v1 group version. As such, the apps/v1beta2 group version is deprecated, and all new code should use the kinds in the apps/v1 group version.

### Auth