@alex asked (privately) for a release after #3488 and #3490 so let's use this issue for tracking remaining work that we'd like to include in the next release and any other process surrounding the release process?

@rbtcollins can you share any context/thoughts around how releases have been managed in the past?

(I'm calling it 1.26.1 since I don't think there are any large changes in the public interface since the previous release, but I haven't checked that deeply so maybe 1.27.0 might be warranted?)