- Short circuit if the compaction request from apiserver is disabled. ([#126627](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126627), [@fusida](https://github.com/fusida)) [SIG Etcd]

#### Apps

- Hyperkube short aliases have been removed from source code, because hyperkube docker image currently creates these aliases. ([#76953](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76953), [@Rand01ph](https://github.com/Rand01ph))

#### Auth

- `data_key_generation_latencies_microseconds` -> `data_key_generation_latencies_seconds`

## Notable Features

- Increased the histogram resolution of the API server client certificate  to accommodate short-lived (< 6h) client certificates. ([#74806](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/74806), [@mxinden](https://github.com/mxinden))

### **Networking**
#### Network Policy
* [stable] [NetworkPolicy](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/network-policies/) promoted to GA.
  * Additionally adds short name "netpol" for networkpolicies ([#42241](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/42241), [@xiangpengzhao](https://github.com/xiangpengzhao))


#### Load Balancing

   ([#123271](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123271), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))

were rapidly scheduled after other pods were reported as complete in the API. The Kubelet now waits to report the phase of a pod as terminal in the API until all running containers are guaranteed to have stopped and no new containers can be started.  Short-lived pods may take slightly longer (~1s) to report Succeeded or Failed after this change. ([#108723](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108723), [@bobbypage](https://github.com/bobbypage)) [SIG Apps, Node and Testing]

## Dependencies...

- Fixed bug in `TopologyManager`...

- Fix instance not found issues when an Azure Node is recreated in a short time ([#93316](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/93316), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

     * traverse. When nodes would otherwise be changed, new nodes are created to replace them. This
     * works well for hash tables since the bin lists tend to be short. (The average length is less
     * than two.)
     *
     * Read operations can thus proceed without locking, but rely on selected uses of volatiles to

* Create now accepts the label selector flag for filtering objects to create ([#40057](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/40057), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))
* Top now accepts short forms for "node" and "pod" ("no", "po") ([#39218](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/39218), [@luksa](https://github.com/luksa))