- Improved performance of `Endpoint` and `EndpointSlice` controllers when there are a large number of services in a single namespace by making pod-to-service lookup asynchronous. ([#134739](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/134739), [@shyamjvs](https://github.com/shyamjvs)) [SIG Apps and...

- Promoted two `EndpointSlice` tests to conformance to ensure that service proxy implementations rely on `EndpointSlices` instead of `Endpoints`. ([#132019](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132019), [@danwinship](https://github.com/danwinship)) [SIG Architecture, Network and Testing]

 
## Changes by Kind

### Deprecation

- Migrated the `EndpointSlice` and `EndpointSliceMirroring` controllers (within `kube-controller-manager`) to use [contextual logging](https://k8s.io/docs/concepts/cluster-administration/system-logs/#contextual-logging). ([#115295](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115295),...

        self.endpoint_path = ctx.get("path")
        self.endpoint_file = ctx.get("file")
        self.endpoint_line = ctx.get("line")

    def errors(self) -> Sequence[Any]:
        return self._errors

    def _format_endpoint_context(self) -> str:
        if not (self.endpoint_file and self.endpoint_line and self.endpoint_function):
            if self.endpoint_path:

- Fixed: during the kube-controller-manager restart, when the corresponding Endpoints resource was manually deleted and recreated, causing the endpointslice to fail to be created normally. ([#125359](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/125359), [@yangjunmyfm192085](https://github.com/yangjunmyfm192085)) [SIG Apps and Network]

- The following roles have had `Watch` added to them (prefixed with `system:controller:`):
  
  - `cronjob-controller`
  - `endpoint-controller`
  - `endpointslice-controller`
  - `endpointslicemirroring-controller`
  - `horizontal-pod-autoscaler`
  - `node-controller`
  - `pod-garbage-collector`