Maintainer Summit North America 2026

CNCF Maintainer Summit North America, hosted in Salt Lake City, Utah.

About

The North America edition of the Maintainer Summit takes place on Sunday, November 8, 2026, in Salt Lake City, Utah, alongside KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026.

Venue
Salt Palace Convention Center
90 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

The Summit is a dedicated day for maintainers to collaborate in person. Programming focuses on sharing best practices, digging into contributing processes, and solving problems that projects have in common.

Schedule

The schedule went live on August 26, 2026. Read it in the schedule section of the official event page, or browse sessions and build a personal agenda in the session planner .

The day runs from 08:15 to 20:00 and includes:

  • Keynotes open the day at 09:00 and close it at 16:45 with Closing Remarks and the Awards.
  • Submitted talks run in two tracks through the morning, covering topics such as reviewing AI-generated pull requests, handling vulnerability reports, and CNCF project reviews.
  • Unconference sessions fill the afternoon: ten slots across three rooms, starting at 13:35 and running until 16:35.
  • Project meetings run in parallel all afternoon, including SIG-etcd, Gateway API, Karmada, OpenTelemetry, and KubeVirt.
  • Reception closes the evening from 17:30 to 20:00.

Kubernetes contributors may want to note Steering the Ship: Ask the Kubernetes Steering Committee at 13:35, an open-format session with members of the Kubernetes Steering Committee. Bring questions about project governance, the direction of the project, or how to get more involved. A form is provided for asking questions anonymously.

Unconference

The unconference is the largest single block of the day: ten sessions across three rooms, in four slots from 13:35 to 16:35. Topics are pitched and chosen by attendees rather than selected in advance through the Call for Proposals, which is what makes the block useful for problems that surface late or that cut across projects. Come with a topic in mind.

The Call for Proposals closed on July 19, 2026. Submissions are no longer possible, but the unconference slots remain open to topics raised on the day.

Registration

Register for the Maintainer Summit .

  • You must also be registered for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026.
  • Maintainer Summit registrations enter a pending queue, and CNCF staff validate them on a weekly basis. Allow time for yours to be confirmed.

Volunteering and staffing

SIG Contributor Experience tracks staffing and volunteer coordination for Kubernetes activities at KubeCon North America 2026 in the kubernetes/community issue.

Eligibility

Space is limited, so attendance is restricted to people who are already actively engaged in a CNCF project. You can attend the Maintainer Summit if you are one of the following:

  • Sandbox Project Maintainer
  • Incubating Project Org Member
  • Graduated Project Org Member
  • CNCF TOC Member
  • CNCF TAG Chair, Technical Lead, or Working Group Lead

For more information, visit the official event page .

Code of Conduct

Attendees agree to abide by the Kubernetes Code of Conduct and the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon event Code of Conduct , which also explains how to report an incident to the CNCF event staff.