WIP: STOR-2966: Promote ExternalSnapshotMetadata feature gate to TechPreviewNoUpgrade

[RomanBednar]

Summary

• Promotes the ExternalSnapshotMetadata feature gate from DevPreviewNoUpgrade to TechPreviewNoUpgrade for OCP 5.0
• Updates contactPerson from jdobson to rbednar
• Regenerates payload featuregate manifests

Context

This is part of the STOR-2900 epic to graduate Changed Block Tracking (CBT) from Developer Preview to Tech Preview in OpenShift 5.0.

Jira: https://redhat.atlassian.net/browse/STOR-2966

The upstream KEP 3314 (Changed Block Tracking) has reached beta status in Kubernetes 1.36, making this promotion appropriate.

Changes

• features/features.go: Changed contactPerson("jdobson") to contactPerson("rbednar") and changed enable(inDevPreviewNoUpgrade()) to enable(inTechPreviewNoUpgrade(), inDevPreviewNoUpgrade())
• features.md: Regenerated (ExternalSnapshotMetadata moved to TechPreview+DevPreview table)
• payload-manifests/featuregates/*.yaml: Regenerated (ExternalSnapshotMetadata added to TechPreviewNoUpgrade enabled list)

Similar PR

Pattern follows #2879 (VSphereMultiVCenterDay2 promotion, June 2026)

[openshift-merge-bot]

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[openshift-ci-robot]

@RomanBednar: This pull request references STOR-2966 which is a valid jira issue.

Warning: The referenced jira issue has an invalid target version for the target branch this PR targets: expected the story to target the "5.0.0" version, but no target version was set.

Details

In response to this:

Summary

• Promotes the ExternalSnapshotMetadata feature gate from DevPreviewNoUpgrade to TechPreviewNoUpgrade for OCP 5.0
• Updates contactPerson from jdobson to rbednar
• Regenerates payload featuregate manifests

Context

This is part of the STOR-2900 epic to graduate Changed Block Tracking (CBT) from Developer Preview to Tech Preview in OpenShift 5.0.

Jira: https://redhat.atlassian.net/browse/STOR-2966

The upstream KEP 3314 (Changed Block Tracking) has reached beta status in Kubernetes 1.36, making this promotion appropriate.

Changes

• features/features.go: Changed contactPerson("jdobson") to contactPerson("rbednar") and changed enable(inDevPreviewNoUpgrade()) to enable(inTechPreviewNoUpgrade(), inDevPreviewNoUpgrade())
• features.md: Regenerated (ExternalSnapshotMetadata moved to TechPreview+DevPreview table)
• payload-manifests/featuregates/*.yaml: Regenerated (ExternalSnapshotMetadata added to TechPreviewNoUpgrade enabled list)

Similar PR

Pattern follows #2879 (VSphereMultiVCenterDay2 promotion, June 2026)

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[openshift-ci]

Hello @RomanBednar! Some important instructions when contributing to openshift/api:
API design plays an important part in the user experience of OpenShift and as such API PRs are subject to a high level of scrutiny to ensure they follow our best practices. If you haven't already done so, please review the OpenShift API Conventions and ensure that your proposed changes are compliant. Following these conventions will help expedite the api review process for your PR.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Repository YAML (base), Central YAML (inherited)

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: 7712ff67-76bb-45be-adf7-d4d3c5aba519

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1a8a2c6 and 1d2fb19.

📒 Files selected for processing (4)

• features.md
• features/features.go
• payload-manifests/featuregates/featureGate-4-10-Hypershift-TechPreviewNoUpgrade.yaml
• payload-manifests/featuregates/featureGate-4-10-SelfManagedHA-TechPreviewNoUpgrade.yaml

✅ Files skipped from review due to trivial changes (1)

• features.md

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (3)

• payload-manifests/featuregates/featureGate-4-10-Hypershift-TechPreviewNoUpgrade.yaml
• features/features.go
• payload-manifests/featuregates/featureGate-4-10-SelfManagedHA-TechPreviewNoUpgrade.yaml

---

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR promotes the ExternalSnapshotMetadata feature gate to tech preview release channels. The feature gate configuration in features.go is updated to enable it in both TechPreviewNoUpgrade and DevPreviewNoUpgrade channels, with a contact person field adjustment. Two deployment manifest files for Hypershift and SelfManagedHA profiles are updated to move the feature gate from disabled to enabled lists. The features.md documentation table is reorganized to reflect the change.

Suggested reviewers

• everettraven
• JoelSpeed

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 15

✅ Passed checks (15 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main change: promoting the ExternalSnapshotMetadata feature gate to TechPreviewNoUpgrade, which is the primary objective across all modified files.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description is directly related to the changeset, clearly explaining the promotion of ExternalSnapshotMetadata from DevPreviewNoUpgrade to TechPreviewNoUpgrade with context and specific file modifications.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Stable And Deterministic Test Names	✅ Passed	The PR modifies feature gate configuration (features/features.go), documentation (features.md), and YAML manifests. None of the changed files contain Ginkgo test declarations, so the check does not...
Test Structure And Quality	✅ Passed	This PR contains no Ginkgo test code; it only modifies feature gate configuration and documentation files. The custom check is not applicable.
Microshift Test Compatibility	✅ Passed	This PR does not add any new Ginkgo e2e tests. Changes are limited to feature gate configuration (features/features.go), documentation (features.md), and YAML manifests. The check for MicroShift te...
Single Node Openshift (Sno) Test Compatibility	✅ Passed	This PR does not add new Ginkgo e2e tests; it only modifies feature gate configuration files. The check is not applicable since it targets only PRs adding new test code.
Topology-Aware Scheduling Compatibility	✅ Passed	PR only modifies feature gate definitions and configuration (Go code, Markdown docs, FeatureGate manifests), not deployment manifests, operator code, or controllers. Check not applicable.
Ote Binary Stdout Contract	✅ Passed	This PR modifies only feature gate configuration (features/features.go) and auto-generated documentation/manifests. It does not touch OTE binary code, process-level code, or test infrastructure tha...
Ipv6 And Disconnected Network Test Compatibility	✅ Passed	This PR does not add any Ginkgo e2e tests. It only modifies feature gate configurations (Go source), documentation (Markdown), and generated YAML manifests, which are not subject to this check.
No-Weak-Crypto	✅ Passed	No weak cryptographic algorithms (MD5, SHA1, DES, RC4, 3DES, Blowfish, ECB), custom crypto implementations, or non-constant-time secret comparisons found in the PR changes.
Container-Privileges	✅ Passed	PR contains only feature gate configuration (Go code, markdown docs, and FeatureGate CRD configs) with no container/pod security manifests to flag.
No-Sensitive-Data-In-Logs	✅ Passed	No logging statements found that expose passwords, tokens, API keys, PII, or sensitive data. Changes only update feature gate metadata and regenerate manifests without adding any logging output.

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✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests

Warning

There were issues while running some tools. Please review the errors and either fix the tool's configuration or disable the tool if it's a critical failure.

🔧 golangci-lint (2.12.2)

Error: build linters: unable to load custom analyzer "kubeapilinter": tools/_output/bin/kube-api-linter.so, plugin: not implemented
The command is terminated due to an error: build linters: unable to load custom analyzer "kubeapilinter": tools/_output/bin/kube-api-linter.so, plugin: not implemented

---

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[openshift-ci]

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[openshift-ci]

@RomanBednar: all tests passed!

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