NixOS 25.11 – Release schedule

[jopejoe1]

Hi, we are @jopejoe1 and @leona-ya, the release managers for NixOS 25.11 ("Xantusia").

We're also happy to work with @getchoo and @pyrox0, who will be the release editors for this NixOS release.

Below you can find the release calendar up to the planned release at the end of November 2025. If something feels unclear to you, don't hesitate to reach out, we appreciate questions, feedback and suggestions. We are here to guide the process and make sure this will be a great release for all of us. You can contact us in the release management matrix room.

These dates may still change slightly. The decision on how many staging cycles will happen will be made later. When a step is done, it will be announced under this issue or with a separate GitHub issue or discourse post.

Done	Date	Branches Affected	Events
✅ #444721	2025-09-20		Start discussion about "Feature Freeze & Release Blockers" with ecosystems maintainers
✅	2025-10-04 00:00 UTC 2025-10-11 00:00 UTC	All branches	Restrict breaking changes to [Release Critical Packages](https://nixos.github.io/release-wiki/Release-Critical-Packages.html#list-of-release-critical-packages)
✅	2025-10-18 00:00 UTC 2025-10-25 00:00 UTC	All branches	Restrict all breaking changes: allow only non-breaking updates and Desktop Manager changes
	2025-10-25 2025-11-01	master	(Day before ZHF) Merge staging-next into master, prepare for ZHF. Begin first staging-next cycle
	2025-10-26 2025-11-02	master	Begin Zero Hydra Failures campaign, focus on minimizing regressions in PRs targeting master
	2025-11-07 2025-11-14	master	Wait for first staging-next merge into master; begin second staging-next cycle (optional)
		staging	Unrestrict all breaking changes; new changes will not be present in the release. Perform staging branchoff
	2025-11-16 2025-11-23	master, release-25.11	Perform Branch-off, create release channels, create branchoff tag
		master, release-25.11	Fixes need to use the "backport" workflow to arrive in the release
		master	Unrestrict all breaking changes; new changes will not be present in the release
		release-25.11	Prepare for release, finish remaining issues
		release-25.11	Start of beta period
	2025-11-23 2025-11-30	release-25.11	Release! Marks the end of the Zero Hydra Failures campaign.
	2025-11-30 2025-12-07		Release Retrospective, everyone is invited to give feedback!

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/let-s-have-a-great-25-11-release-cycle/69475/1

[jopejoe1]

Due to recent events, many contributors could not work as much on release-related changes as they actually wanted, and we think that it would be a good idea to move the feature freeze and release by one week so that we have enough time to get in everything that we want in this release.

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/let-s-have-a-great-25-11-release-cycle/69475/4

[leona-ya]

As by the above timeline, breaking changes to release critical packages are restricted since yesterday.