Amazon EKS and EKS Distro Adopt Kubernetes Version 1.36 Featuring Security and Resource Scaling Enhancements

AWS updated Elastic Kubernetes Service and EKS Distro to support Kubernetes v1.36, introducing notable security and operational improvements.

By Julian Wells · Editorial pseudonym · 2026-06-02 · 1 min read

AI-ASSISTED REPORTING · RETROSPECTIVE ARCHIVE

Retrospective edition: 2026-06-02. Source published: 2026-06-02. Added to this archive: 2026-11-03. This briefing was prepared later from the linked announcement; it was not published on this website on the historical edition date.

In June 2026, AWS announced support for Kubernetes version 1.36 on Amazon EKS and EKS Distro, enabling users to create and upgrade clusters using this latest Kubernetes release. Key features include promotion of User Namespaces to general availability, enhancing security by mapping container root to unprivileged host users, and Mutating Admission Policies with CEL-based resource mutation sans webhook infrastructure.

Additional improvements in Kubernetes 1.36 involve in-place vertical scaling of pod-level resources, allowing CPU and memory allocation adjustments without pod restarts, and device health status reporting to diagnose hardware-related pod failures. AWS supports this version in all its regions where EKS is offered, providing tools and documentation for users to facilitate upgrades.

Source & further reading

Amazon EKS and Amazon EKS Distro now supports Kubernetes version 1.36 ↗

Source published 2026-06-02. This report was prepared with AI assistance from the linked primary-source material. Claims and limitations should be checked against the original announcement or research.