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CNCF Maintainer Summit

The CNCF Maintainer Summit is an exclusive event for the people behind our projects to gather face-to-face, collaborate, and celebrate the projects that make “Cloud Native”.

Programming is focused on sharing best practices, diving into contributing processes, and solving common problems across projects to enrich our great community of maintainers. The goal is to make the CNCF ecosystem stronger and better by helping maintainers become stronger working together.

2025 CNCF Maintainer Summit banner

Event Details​

The following details are specific to the 2025 Maintainer Summit.

Date : Sunday, November 9, 2025
One day prior to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America pre-event programming. The event is held on Sunday to avoid conflict with co-located event days.

Location : Atlanta, Georgia
Georgia World Congress Center, Building B. 285 Andrew Young International Blvd NW, Atlanta, GA 30313.

Hashtag : #CNCFMaintainerSummit

Format : In-person only.

Who Can Attend (Eligibility)​

The Maintainer Summit is not an event for general attendance. Attendance is limited to ensure active engagement due to limited space and the rapidly growing number of CNCF Project Org members.

Eligible Attendees​

  • Sandbox Project Maintainers
    • Note: Your GitHub handle MUST exist in the official project-maintainers.csv file (located in the CNCF GitHub organization). You can verify your inclusion by checking this file for your GitHub handle.
  • Incubating Project Org Members
  • Graduated Project Org Members
  • CNCF TOC Members
  • CNCF TAG Chairs, Technical Leads and Working Group Leads

Registration Requirements​

To attend the Maintainer Summit, you must be registered for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon. A single-day Maintainer Summit-only pass is not available.

Registration status will be placed into a pending queue for weekly review by CNCF staff to validate criteria compliance.

Maintainers, TAG Leads, Kubernetes Special Interest Group Leads, or WG Leads can sponsor someone who is not yet a GitHub org member to attend. If sponsoring an attendee, the sponsor must proactively contact ProjectsAtKubeCon@linuxfoundation.org with the individual’s details.

Program and Content​

The summit program includes curated content chosen via a formal CFP process, as well as community-driven unconference sessions.

Unconference Sessions​

The unconference is a fundamental part of the summit, where attendees are in the driver’s seat.

  • Format: Attendees pick the topics they want to discuss. These meetings are unstructured, and any resulting action items are driven and owned by the participants.
  • Proposing Topics: If you missed the formal CFP deadline, the majority of the summit format allows for unconference-style sessions, giving you an opportunity to propose a session closer to the event. Attendees can vote on the topics they wish to discuss.
  • Recording: Unconference sessions are generally not recorded due to their discussion-oriented nature. Attendees are encouraged to keep shared notes documents.

Project Meetings​

Space is available for project teams to book rooms and have dedicated project meetings.

Key Governance Topics and Initiatives​

The summit provides opportunities to understand how the CNCF (TOC and TAGs) supports maintainer work.

  • TOC & Steering Committee: There are opportunities, such as "Ask the Experts" sessions, to interface directly with the TOC and the Kubernetes Steering Committee.
  • TAG Reboot Initiative: Dedicated sessions will focus on the CNCF-wide effort to restructure and revitalize Technical Advisory Groups, aiming to improve leadership sustainability, address burnout, and attract new domain experts and contributors. For more details, see the TAG Reboot Initiative overview or the CNCF blog post.
  • Future Leadership: We are currently looking for Program Chairs for future Maintainer Summits (specifically 2026 and 2027). If you are interested in this role—which involves organizing content and working with the events team—please reach out.

Call for Proposals (CFP) and Speaking​

CFP Eligibility (for submitting talks)​

  • Incubating Project GitHub Org Members
  • Graduated Project GitHub Org Members
  • CNCF TAG Leads & CNCF TOC Members

Speaker Registration Benefits​

Accepted speakers who submitted via the CFP process will receive an “All-Access” pass for CNCF-hosted co-located events and KubeCon + CloudNativeCon programming. (This excludes proposals submitted for Project Meetings).

CFP Timeline:

Note: The CFP timeline is maintained at the official CNCF event website. Please refer to the CFP timeline for the most up-to-date information. In previous years, the CFP opened in mid-May and closed at the end of July to avoid holidays and short deadlines. The timeline for each year's summit typically follows a similar schedule; please check back for the most current dates and updates.

Sponsorship and Acknowledgments​

Sponsorship is essential to the event's sustainability, helping cover hard costs and enabling the summit to secure its own dedicated day and space, thus avoiding conflicts with other co-located events.

Past Sponsors​

  • Red Hat (Break and Reception Sponsor)
  • Microsoft Azure (Break and Reception Sponsor)

Current Sponsorship​

Please see How to Sponsor for instructions. For the 2025 event, signed contracts must be received by September 24, 2025.

How to Sponsor​

To secure your sponsorship for the Maintainer Summit, please contact sponsor@cncf.io. Signed contracts must be received by the sponsorship deadline for the current event year. For specific deadlines, see the "Current Sponsorship" section.

Contact Information​

If you have questions, need assistance, or believe your registration was incorrectly denied, please reach out:

  • Email: ProjectsAtKubeCon@linuxfoundation.org
  • Slack: Ask a question on the #maintainer-summit channel in the CNCF Slack workspace

Conduct​

All attendees are expected to adhere to the Code of Conduct. If an issue should arise, please contact the event staff or the program chairs.

London cityscape for 2025 Maintainer Summit location