serving

Breaking changes

What to check before upgrading, taken from the notes of the last 30 releases.

• knative-v1.21.2Mar 24, 2026

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release and included a new setting AllowRootBounded in v1.20 that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For 1.21 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.22) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.22._

  For more information see the documentation and reach out if you foresee issues in your testing.

• knative-v1.21.1Feb 24, 2026

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release and included a new setting AllowRootBounded in v1.20 that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For 1.21 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.22) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.22._

  For more information see the documentation and reach out if you foresee issues in your testing.

• knative-v1.19.9Jan 28, 2026

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  We've dropped support for OpenCensus (which has been deprecated for a while) in favour of OpenTelemetry. This is a breaking change and details are documented here in the design document. and the website (https://knative.dev/docs/serving/observability/metrics/collecting-metrics/)

• knative-v1.21.0Jan 27, 2026

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release and included a new setting AllowRootBounded in v1.20 that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For 1.21 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.22) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.22._

  For more information see the documentation and reach out if you foresee issues in your testing.

• knative-v1.20.2Jan 27, 2026

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Metrics and Tracing

  In v1.19 we've dropped support for OpenCensus (which has been deprecated for a while) in favour of OpenTelemetry. This is a breaking change and details are documented here in the design document. and the website (https://knative.dev/docs/serving/observability/metrics/collecting-metrics/)

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release but this release includes a new setting AllowRootBounded that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For v1.20 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.21) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.21._

• knative-v1.20.1Dec 25, 2025

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Metrics and Tracing

  In v1.19 we've dropped support for OpenCensus (which has been deprecated for a while) in favour of OpenTelemetry. This is a breaking change and details are documented here in the design document. and the website (https://knative.dev/docs/serving/observability/metrics/collecting-metrics/)

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release but this release includes a new setting AllowRootBounded that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For v1.20 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.21) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.21._

• knative-v1.19.8Dec 23, 2025

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  We've dropped support for OpenCensus (which has been deprecated for a while) in favour of OpenTelemetry. This is a breaking change and details are documented here in the design document. and the website (https://knative.dev/docs/serving/observability/metrics/collecting-metrics/)

• knative-v1.20.0Oct 29, 2025

  🚨 Breaking or Notable Changes

  Metrics and Tracing

  In v1.19 we've dropped support for OpenCensus (which has been deprecated for a while) in favour of OpenTelemetry. This is a breaking change and details are documented here in the design document. and the website (https://knative.dev/docs/serving/observability/metrics/collecting-metrics/)

  Secure Pod Defaults (#16042, @nader-ziada)

  We've introduce secure-pod-defaults in an earlier release but this release includes a new setting AllowRootBounded that offers a better security posture for your workloads but balances the compatibility with images that require/expect you to run as root.

  For v1.20 release the secure-pod-defaults default will remain disabled but in a future release (most likely v1.21) we will switch this default to AllowRootBounded.

  _If you're unsure whether your workloads will support this new setting you should explicitly set this option to disabled prior to upgrading to v1.21._

  For more information see the documentation and reach out if you foresee issues in your testing.