Starting with Kubernetes `v1.36`, `kubelet` might refuse to start if the CRI runtime does not support this feature. More information can be found at the [Kubernetes blog](https://kubernetes.io/blog/2025/09/12/kubernetes-v1-34-cri-cgroup-driver-lookup-now-ga/). ([#134906](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/134906), [@carlory](https://github.com/carlory))

    - [PodSecurity graduates to Beta](#podsecurity-graduates-to-beta)
    - [Container Runtime Interface (CRI) v1 is default](#container-runtime-interface-cri-v1-is-default)
    - [Structured logging graduate to Beta](#structured-logging-graduate-to-beta)

- Bumped `KubeletCgroupDriverFromCRI` to GA and add metric to track out-of-support CRI implementations. ([#133157](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/133157), [@haircommander](https://github.com/haircommander)) [SIG Node and Testing]

- Extended ContainerStatus CRI API to allow runtime response with container resource requests and limits that are in effect.
  - UpdateContainerResources CRI API now supports both Linux and Windows. ([#111645](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111645), [@vinaykul](https://github.com/vinaykul))

  - `PodStatus.ResourcesAllocated` describes node resources allocated to Pod.
  - `PodStatus.Resources` describes node resources applied to running containers by CRI.
  - `UpdateContainerResources` CRI API now supports both Linux and Windows. ([#102884](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/102884), [@vinaykul](https://github.com/vinaykul))

- Docker support in the kubelet is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. The kubelet uses a module called "dockershim" which implements CRI support for Docker and it has seen maintenance issues in the Kubernetes community. We encourage you to evaluate moving to a container runtime that is a full-fledged implementation of CRI (v1alpha1 or v1 compliant) as they become available. ([#94624](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94624), [@dims](https://github.com/dims)) [SIG...

   ([#121912](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121912), [@JoelSpeed](https://github.com/JoelSpeed))
- Allowed container runtimes to fix an image garbage collection bug by adding an `image_id` field to the CRI Container message.
   ([#123508](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123508), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert))

- Update cri-tools to [v1.20.0](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools/releases/tag/v1.20.0) ([#97967](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/97967), [@rajibmitra](https://github.com/rajibmitra)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

- Updated `cri-tools` to [v1.25.0(https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools/releases/tag/v1.25.0) ([#112058](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/112058), [@saschagrunert](https://github.com/saschagrunert))

- kubeadm: if the `NodeLocalCRISocket` feature gate is enabled, remove the `kubeadm.alpha.kubernetes.io/cri-socket` annotation from a given node on `kubeadm upgrade`. ([#129279](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/129279), [@HirazawaUi](https://github.com/HirazawaUi)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle and Testing]