Release 0.42

[lidel]

Note

Part of ongoing maintenance of key libraries and services the Shipyard team does for IPFS Foundation:

• Ongoing maintenance of key libraries and services — 2026-Q2 ipshipyard/roadmaps#50

Meta

• Release owner: @lidel
• Release reviewer/backup: @gammazero
• Expected RC1 date: 2026-05-27
• 🚢 Expected final release date: TBD
• Release PR: Release v0.42.0 #11339
• Accompanying PR for improving the release process: TBD
• Internal Staging tests by Shipyard: TBD
• Changelog: https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/docs/changelogs/v0.42.md

Items In Scope

Found during RC1 or to cherry-pick

• fix(libp2p): quieter dead-listener check #11342
• feat: derive AgentSuffix from build origin #11341

Required

• chore: bump go-libp2p-kad-dht to v0.40.0 #11334
• CVE-2026-33186 google.golang.org/grpc false-positive #11283
• chore: bump p2p-forge to v0.8.0 #11285
• fix(log): scope provide logs to "provider" subsystem #11289
• fix: resolve wildcard swarm in http provides #11297
• docs: clarify denylist scope vs routing layer #11320
• feat(config): dead listener check #11299
• fix(libp2p): drop empty addrs in AddrsFactory #11302
• docs: clarify blockstore cache sizing and flatfs sharding #11303
• fix: migration fetcher robustness #11305
• feat(provide): add ipfs provide once and support Interval=0 mode #11321
• feat(pinner): close pinner before repo on shutdown #11296
• feat: bound graceful shutdown, add diag healthy #11329
• kad-dht with fixes
  • fix(provider): hold cycleStatsLk in batchReprovide defer libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht#1255
  • fix(provider): per-peer timeout on ADD_PROVIDER sends libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht#1252
  • fix(provider)!: bound keystore.Size in Stats with a timeout libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht#1251
  • fix(ResettableKeystore): speed up reset process and keep worker responsive libp2p/go-libp2p-kad-dht#1256

Nice To Have (Optional)

• feat(dag): add --local-only to dag export and import #11229
• refactor: migrate away from cheggaaa/pb v1 #11322
• docs: firewall (ufw) walkthrough for port 4001 #11332
• refactor: check if boxo/files.File is io.Seeker #11254
• feat: add built-in ipfs update command #11203
• feat(cmd): add 'ipfs cid inspect' command #11241
• fix(bitswap): ignore identity CIDs instead of killing connection boxo#1117
• HTTP Routing V1 provider records contain raw 0.0.0.0 listen addresses instead of resolved interface addresses #11213
• Unified Provide Interface for Content Routers #10097 ?
• denylist: ?format=car does not skip directly blocked CIDs #10361
• MFS bug: ipfs files rm hanging #10842
• fix(cli): deduplicate dag stat blocks by multihash #11098
• Support consuming https://badbits.dwebops.pub/badbits.deny rainbow#126 (same applies to Kubo)
  • fix(gateway): prevent blocked CIDs in CAR responses #10948
    • ipfs blockservice is incompatible with sessions ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#34 (re-triage once kubo#10948 is done)
  • HTTPSubscriber: check with If-None-Match or If-Modified-Since ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#38
  • HTTPSubscriber: detect when list is not append-only ipfs-shipyard/nopfs#39
• Move ipfs routing provide and reprovide into ipfs provide namespace #10865
• feat(client/rpc): add provide stat and dag import support #11069 / feat(client/rpc): auto-generate RPC GO client #11210

[lidel]

✅ Release Checklist (v0.42.0-rc1)

1. Prepare Release Branch

• Fetch latest changes: git fetch origin master release
• Create branch release-vX.Y.Z (base from: master if Z=0 for new minor/major, release if Z>0 for patch)
• RC1 only: Switch to master branch and prepare for next release cycle:
  • Update version.go to vX.Y+1.0-dev (⚠️ double-check Y+1 is correct) (example PR)
  • Create ./docs/changelogs/vX.Y+1.md and add link in CHANGELOG.md
• Switch to release-vX.Y.Z branch and update version.go to vX.Y.Z(-rcN) (⚠️ double-check Y matches release) (example)
• Create draft PR: release-vX.Y.Z → release (example)
• Cherry-pick commits from master into release-vX.Y.Z: git cherry-pick -x <commit> (example)
  • ⚠️ NOTE: -x flag records original commit SHA for traceability and cleaner merge history
• Verify all CI checks on the PR are passing
• FINAL only: Replace Changelog and Contributors sections in release-vX.Y.Z with ./bin/mkreleaselog stdout (do NOT copy stderr)
• FINAL only: Merge PR (release-vX.Y.Z → release) using Create a merge commit
  • ⚠️ do NOT use Squash and merge nor Rebase and merge; we want the releaser's GPG signature on the merge commit
  • ⚠️ do NOT delete the release-vX.Y.Z branch (needed for future patch releases and git history)

2. Tag & Publish

Create Tag

⚠️ POINT OF NO RETURN: once pushed, tags trigger automatic Docker/NPM publishing that cannot be undone!
If you're making a release for the first time, do pair programming and have the release reviewer verify all commands.

• RC: From release-vX.Y.Z branch: git tag -s vX.Y.Z-rcN -m 'Prerelease X.Y.Z-rcN'
• FINAL: After PR merge, from release branch: git tag -s vX.Y.Z -m 'Release X.Y.Z'
• ⚠️ Verify tag is signed and correct: git show vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
• Push tag: git push origin vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • ⚠️ do NOT use git push --tags (pushes every local tag, cluttering the repo)
• STOP: Wait for Docker build to complete before proceeding

Publish Artifacts

Parallelism: Docker and dist.ipfs.tech only depend on the pushed tag and can be started in parallel.
NPM and GitHub Release both depend on dist.ipfs.tech completing first.

• Docker: Verify docker-image CI passed and image is available on Docker Hub → tags
• dist.ipfs.tech: Publish to dist.ipfs.tech
  • Check out ipfs/distributions
  • Create branch: git checkout -b release-kubo-X.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • Verify .tool-versions golang matches Kubo's CI go-version: (update if needed)
  • Run: ./dist.sh add-version kubo vX.Y.Z(-rcN) (usage)
  • Create and merge PR (updates dists/kubo/versions, FINAL also updates dists/kubo/current - example)
  • Wait for CI workflow triggered by merge
  • Verify release on dist.ipfs.tech
• NPM: Publish to NPM
  • Manually dispatch Release to npm workflow if not auto-triggered
  • Verify release on NPM
• GitHub Release: Publish to GitHub
  • Create release (RC example, FINAL example)
  • Use tag vX.Y.Z(-rcN)
  • Link to release issue
  • RC: Link to changelog, check This is a pre-release
  • FINAL: Copy changelog content (without header), do NOT check pre-release
  • Run sync-release-assets workflow (requires dist.ipfs.tech)
  • Verify assets are attached to the GitHub release

3. Post-Release

Technical Tasks

• FINAL only: Merge release → master
  • Create branch merge-release-vX.Y.Z from release
  • Merge master to merge-release-vX.Y.Z first, and resolve conflict in version.go
    • ⚠️ NOTE: keep the -dev version from master in version.go, discard version from release
  • Create and merge PR from merge-release-vX.Y.Z to master using Create a merge commit
    • ⚠️ do NOT use Squash and merge nor Rebase and merge; only Create a merge commit preserves commit history and the audit trail of what was merged where
• Update ipshipyard/waterworks-infra
  • Update Kubo staging environment (Running Kubo tests on staging)
    • RC: Test last release against current RC
    • FINAL: Latest release on both boxes
  • FINAL: Update collab cluster boxes to the tagged release
  • FINAL: Update libp2p bootstrappers to the tagged release
• Update ipfs-desktop
  • Create PR updating kubo version in package.json and package-lock.json
  • Smoke test with IPFS Companion Browser Extension against the PR build
  • FINAL: Merge PR and ship new ipfs-desktop release
• FINAL only: Update docs.ipfs.tech: run update-on-new-ipfs-tag.yml workflow and merge the PR

Promotion

• Create IPFS Discourse topic (RC example, FINAL example)
  • Title: Kubo vX.Y.Z(-rcN) is out!, tag: kubo
  • Use title as heading (##) in description
  • Include: GitHub release link, IPNS binaries, docker pull command, release notes
  • Pin topic globally (make banner if no existing banner)
• Verify bot posted to #ipfs-chatter (Discord) or #ipfs-chatter:ipfs.io (Matrix)
• RC only: Comment on release issue mentioning early testers (example)
• FINAL only: Comment on release issue with link (example)
• FINAL only: Create blog.ipfs.tech entry (example)
• FINAL non-PATCH: (optional) Post on social media (bsky, x.com, Reddit)

[lidel]

Kubo v0.42.0-rc1 is out!

Early testers ping for RC1 testing:

• Charity Engine (@Rytiss, @tristanolive)
• Fission (@bmann)
• Infura (@MichaelMure)
• OrbitDB (@haydenyoung)
• Pinata (@obo20)
• Shipyard (@cewood, @ns4plabs)
• Siderus (@koalalorenzo)
• Textile (@sanderpick)
• @RubenKelevra

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