ElementsProject/lightning v25.09rc1 on GitHub

Release Candidate for Core Lightning v25.09

This release has been named by @king-11.

Note: release schedule moved one month: this is v25.09, and all deprecations incremented accordingly

Highlights for Users

bookkeeper has been migrated into core lightning, allowing visibility into payments, fees and channel activities.
xpay can now directly pay BIP353 addresses (like ₿user@domain.com) and simple offers without extra steps.
fetchinvoice is now more reliable.
Better feedback when channel creation fails due to capacity limits.
New browser tool for viewing CLN log files.
Rust-based wss-proxy with better multi-address support.
Now limiting the number of parts a payment can be split on xpay and askrene

bookkeeper plugin functionality is now integrated into Core Lightning with native listchainmoves and listchannelmoves commands, unified database storage, SQL query support, and real-time notifications for better financial auditability.
Reckless now supports the modern uv package manager for Python plugins.
Speaking of uv, we've transitioned away from poetry, now using uv.
getroutes now accepts maxparts parameter to limit payment splitting for better route control.
Flexible API responses - clnrest can return data in XML, YAML, or form-encoded formats beyond JSON.
libplugin now allows synchronous calls at any time.
Improvements to the rate of feasible solutions found in the main loop of the solver on askrene
To increase the runtime, we've refactored the minimum cost flow solver, pruning some network arcs and reducing the internal unit of account.

Splicing improvements allow for better compatibility with Eclair and continuous routing during channel modifications.
Improve security by ensuring all peers must support channel type.
Payment secrets now mandatory in BOLT11 invoices for better payment protection.

Since 25.05 we’ve had 300 commits in 64 days by 16 authors

A special thanks to the four first time contributors: