Announcements

• Protobuf News may include additional announcements or pre-announcements for upcoming changes to Go Protobuf.
• Go Version Policy: Go Protobuf is updating its Go version support policy to support the two most recent major Go releases. The minimum Go version in go.mod will be updated to the oldest supported Go version (currently Go 1.26). See the News announcement for more details.
• Release Cadence: Go Protobuf is adopting Protobuf's quarterly release cadence, aligning its minor version naming and release schedule with protoc. See the News announcement for more details.

Changelog

Full Changelog: v1.36.12...v1.37.0-rc.1

User-visible changes:
CL/822244: all: set Go language version to Go 1.26
CL/837845: internal/editionssupport: declare support for edition 2026
CL/809160: internal/impl: avoid Convert copies in the string and bytes converters
CL/820341: internal/impl: optimize oneof unmarshaling and serialization by precomputing itabs

Bug fixes:
CL/774741: encoding/prototext: enforce RecursionLimit in skipValue/skipMessageValue

Maintenance:
CL/846166: encoding/protojson: rename decodeCache fields and helpers for custom enum JSON names
CL/846165: encoding/protojson: use jsonenumvalueoptionspb.E_Json for enum JSON names
CL/845825: generate-protos: remove extension fullname and name constants
CL/845605: protoc: update to the protobuf version (36.2)
CL/833704: internal/impl: fix atomicity bug in oneof optimization
CL/824064: internal/benchmark: remove dormant datasets
CL/811460: CONTRIBUTING.md: add instruction to install Bazel.