#### New API fields:

-...

- Prevent watch cache starvation by moving its watch to separate RPC and add a SeparateCacheWatchRPC feature flag to disable this behavior ([#123694](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123694), [@mengqiy](https://github.com/mengqiy)) [SIG API Machinery]

   - In version 1.8, enable this behavior by setting the
     `--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-use-rest-clients` flag to `true`.

   - In version 1.9, this behavior will be enabled by default, and must be explicitly
     disabled by setting the `--horizontal-pod-autoscaler-use-rest-clients` flag to `false`.

### Cluster Lifecycle

- The `auto-detect` behavior of the kubelet's `--cloud-provider` flag is deprecated.

- The alpha `Initializers` admission plugin is no longer enabled by default. This matches the off-by-default behavior of the alpha API which drives initializer behavior. ([#66039](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66039), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

    - [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)

* 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))

*   The default `auto-detect` behavior of the kubelet's `--cloud-provider` flag is removed.
    *   You can manually set `--cloud-provider=auto-detect`, but be aware that this behavior will be removed completely in a future version.

- Fixed #118052: nodeAffinity on pods can change prior to scheduling gates being removed even when podSpec.affinity is nil in the initial spec, this matches the 1.28 behavior to allow consistent integrators to be written. ([#118199](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/118199), [@aleskandro](https://github.com/aleskandro)) [SIG Apps, Scheduling and Testing]

* Default mount propagation has changed from `HostToContainer` ("rslave" in Linux terminology), as it was in 1.10, to `None` ("private") to match the behavior in 1.9 and earlier releases; `HostToContainer` as a default caused regressions in some pods. If you are relying on this behavior you will need to set it explicitly. ([#62462](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/62462), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane))