22 KiB
Kubernetes Version Markers
Version markers are text files which act as sort of a public API for accessing Kubernetes builds.
They are artifacts of a successful Kubernetes build which are stored in a Google Cloud Storage bucket alongside the builds they make reference to.
You may see version markers leveraged in a variety of places, including:
- extraction strategies for e2e tests
- Release Engineering tooling
- external user-maintained scripts
Table of Contents
tl;dr
You need a...
CI - cross build version
Use curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest.txt (master branch)
OR
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-x.y.txt, where x is the
Kubernetes major version and y is the Kubernetes minor version (release branches).
CI - linux/amd64 (fast) build version
Use curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-fast.txt (only available
on master branch).
Release - Official release build version
Use curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-x.y.txt, where x is the
Kubernetes major version and y is the Kubernetes minor version.
Release - Pre-release build version
Use curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-x.y.txt, where x is the
Kubernetes major version and y is the Kubernetes minor version.
Usage
Format
All version markers have similar endpoints:
<base-uri>/<directory>/<marker>
Expected output is semver-compliant
version, prepended with a v.
Example:
v1.20.0-alpha.0.391+575c4925be8c39
Access
Version markers are accessible via HTTP, so there are several ways to get them, depending on your use case.
curl/wget
The pattern to use is:
https://dl.k8s.io/<directory>/<marker>
For example, this generates a list of copy-pastable curl commands for each marker:
for p in ci release; do \
for v in "" -1 -1.21 -1.20 -1.19; do \
for t in latest stable; do \
m=$p/$t$v; echo curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/$m.txt: $(curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/$m.txt); \
done;
done;
done | grep -v NoSuchKey
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest.txt: v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-1.txt: v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-1.21.txt: v1.21.4-rc.0.8+e33079364f8f66
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-1.20.txt: v1.20.10-rc.0.3+c0f757a067f32a
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-1.19.txt: v1.19.14-rc.0.1+4900b04db38214
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest.txt: v1.22.0-beta.2
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt: v1.21.3
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-1.txt: v1.22.0-beta.2
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-1.txt: v1.21.3
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-1.21.txt: v1.21.4-rc.0
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-1.21.txt: v1.21.3
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-1.20.txt: v1.20.10-rc.0
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-1.20.txt: v1.20.9
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-1.19.txt: v1.19.14-rc.0
curl -Ls https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-1.19.txt: v1.19.13
gcsweb
Navigate via web browser to
https://gcsweb.k8s.io/gcs/<gcs-bucket>/<directory>/<marker>.
For CI builds, <gcs-bucket> is k8s-release-dev
Example:
$ open https://gcsweb.k8s.io/gcs/k8s-release-dev/ci
For release builds, <gcs-bucket> is kubernetes-release
Example:
$ open https://gcsweb.k8s.io/gcs/kubernetes-release/release
Querying a build
Once you've successfully retrieved a version marker, you can use it to list the contents of a Kubernetes build.
Here's an example:
$ gsutil ls gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/
Output:
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA256SUMS
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA256SUMS.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA256SUMS.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA512SUMS
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA512SUMS.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/SHA512SUMS.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-darwin-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-386.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-386.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-386.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-s390x.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-386.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-386.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-386.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-client-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-manifests.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-manifests.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-manifests.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-s390x.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-windows-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-node-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-s390x.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-server-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-src.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-src.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-src.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-darwin-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-arm64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-ppc64le.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-s390x.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-linux-s390x.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-portable.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-portable.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-portable.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-windows-amd64.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes-test-windows-amd64.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes.tar.gz
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes.tar.gz.sha256
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/kubernetes.tar.gz.sha512
gs://k8s-release-dev/ci/v1.22.0-beta.2.39+33aba7ee025dfd/bin/
A general, non-exhaustive list of the expected artifacts of a Kubernetes build can be found here.
Marker types
Version markers are broken into two primary types: CI and release markers
CI
GCS Bucket: k8s-release-dev
Directory: ci
latest
Path: https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest[-x.y].txt
kubekins-e2e extract: ci/latest[-x.y].txt
latest markers reference cross builds generated via the ci-kubernetes-build
jobs, which run approximately every hour.
This version marker exists for all active Kubernetes release branches.
latest-fast
Path: https://dl.k8s.io/ci/latest-fast.txt
kubekins-e2e extract: ci/latest-fast.txt
latest-fast markers reference linux/amd64-only builds generated via the
ci-kubernetes-build-fast job, which run approximately every 5 minutes.
This version marker only exists for the master branch.
DEPRECATED - generic
Path: https://dl.k8s.io/ci/k8s-<generic-version>.txt
kubekins-e2e extract: ci/k8s-<generic-version>.txt
The following generic markers are available:
k8s-masterk8s-beta*k8s-stable1k8s-stable2k8s-stable3
Generic markers reference cross builds generated via the ci-kubernetes-build
jobs, which run approximately every hour.
This version marker exists for all active Kubernetes release branches.
Whenever possible, prefer using the latest version markers instead of generic ones. The meaning of these markers changes throughout the release cycles, which frequently leads to job misconfiguration and increased difficulty in debugging failures. These generic markers only continue to exist to prevent breakage in jobs that currently use them. They will be disabled at a future date.
Release
GCS Bucket: kubernetes-release
Directory: release
Official
Path: https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable-x.y.txt
kubekins-e2e extract: release/stable-x.y.txt
stable markers reference cross builds generated via the official Kubernetes
releases and can only be produced by Release Managers.
This version marker exists for all active Kubernetes release branches that have
had a minor (x.y.0) release.
Pre-release
Path: https://dl.k8s.io/release/latest-x.y.txt
kubekins-e2e extract: release/latest-x.y.txt
latest markers reference cross builds generated via the Kubernetes
pre-releases and can only be produced by Release Managers.
This version marker exists for all active Kubernetes release branches.
Future Plans
(An up-to-date tracking issue for this work can be found here.)
- (https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/15564) Use explicit (
latest-x.y) version markers in generated jobs - (https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/18290, https://github.com/kubernetes/release/pull/1389) Publish fast builds to separate subdirectory to prevent collisions
- (https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/18169) Add a new
stable4field to the kubernetes version lists inreleng/test_config.yamlto remove confusion around jobs withbetain their name - Refactor any non-generated jobs using generic version markers
- Refactor any config-forked release jobs using generic version markers
- Refactor any jobs using
fork-per-release-generic-suffix: "true"annotations - Disable usage of
fork-per-release-generic-suffix: "true"annotations - Rewrite the Kubernetes versions doc and put it in a more visible location
- Refactor
releng/test_config.yamlto remove references to generic versions (e.g., preferci-kubernetes-e2enode-ubuntu1-latest-1-19-gkespecoverci-kubernetes-e2enode-ubuntu1-k8sbeta-gkespec)
Known Issues
Unfortunately, the way certain version markers are generated and utilized can at best be confusing, and at worst, disruptive.
There are a variety of problems, some of which are symptoms of the other ones...
Generic version markers are not explicit
We publish a set of additional generic version markers:
k8s-masterk8s-betak8s-stable1k8s-stable2k8s-stable3
Depending on the point in the release cycle, the meaning of these markers can change.
k8s-masteralways points to the version onmaster.k8s-betamay represent:masters build version (pre-branch cut)- a to-be-released build version (post-branch cut)
- a recently released build version (post-release)
Knowing what these markers mean at any one time presumes knowledge of the build/release process or a correct interpretation of this document, which has frequently out of date and lives in a low-visibility location.
Manually created jobs using generic version markers can be inaccurate
Non-generated jobs using generic version markers do not get the same level of
scrutiny as ones that are generated via
releng/test_config.yaml.
This leads to inaccuracies between the versions presumed to be used in test and the versions that may be displayed in testgrid.
ci-kubernetes-e2e-gce-beta-stable1-gci-kubectl-skew is a great example:
96e08f4be2/config/jobs/kubernetes/sig-cli/sig-cli-config.yaml (L85-L112)
All variants of that prowjob have landed on the sig-release-job-config-errors
dashboard for various misconfiguration issues that are the result of generic
version markers.
Previous Issues
linux/amd64 version markers are colliding with cross builds
(Fixed in https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/18290.)
"Fast" (linux/amd64-only) builds run every 5 minutes, while cross builds run
every hour.
They also write to the same version markers (latest.txt,
latest-<major>.txt, latest-<major>.<minor>.txt).
The Kubernetes build jobs have a mechanism for checking if a build already exists and will exit early to save on test cycles.
What this means is if a "fast" build has already happened for a commit, then the corresponding cross build will exit without building.
This has been happening pretty consistently lately, so cross build consumers are using much older versions of Kubernetes than intended.
(Note that this condition only happens on master.)
Cross builds are stored in a separate GCS bucket
(Fixed in https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/14030.)
This makes long-term usage of cross builds a little more difficult, since scripts utilizing version markers tend to consider only the version marker filename, while the GCS bucket name remains unparameterized.
Generated jobs may not represent intention
(Fixed in https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/15564.)
As the generic version markers can shift throughout the release cycle, every time we regenerate jobs, they may not represent what we intend to test.
The best examples of this are pretty much every job using the k8s-beta
version marker, and more specifically, skew and upgrade jobs.
bazel version markers appear to be unused
(Fixed in https://github.com/kubernetes/test-infra/pull/15612.)