The Cloud Native Computing Foundation's End User Community announced the launch of its User Group Program at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America on November 11, 2026. The program establishes long-lived groups organized around industry verticals and problem domains that report directly to the CNCF Technical Advisory Board.
How user groups operate
CNCF said the new User Groups are structured as long-lived organizational units designed to serve the ongoing needs of end users in specific fields. Each group operates under a formal charter and is led by chairs approved by the Technical Advisory Board (TAB).
Groups are required to hold at least one public monthly meeting recorded and published to YouTube, report regularly on their health to the TAB, and maintain a presence at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon events.
Their standing duties include identifying gaps in the CNCF project portfolio, producing community-sourced reference architectures, educating users with practical information, and delivering feedback to CNCF projects regarding reliability, usability, and performance.
The path to user group status
CNCF outlined a multi-tiered structure for community organization. Technical Community Groups (TCGs) serve as lightweight starting points focused on discussion and knowledge sharing, operating with minimal governance under two-year organizer terms.
To graduate from a TCG to a formal User Group, a group must complete numerous initiatives, address a technical gap not served by existing groups, and draft a charter for TAB approval. Project-focused domains follow a parallel path overseen by the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) to become Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs).
The Platform Engineering community transitioned through this pipeline, starting as a Working Group, becoming a TCG during a restructuring, and now moving into a User Group with outputs such as the Platform Engineering Maturity Model and Platforms White Paper.
Initial groups and domain focus
The User Group Program launched with four initial focus areas: Platform Engineering, Public Sector, Research, and Telecom. CNCF stated that new groups will form as outstanding coverage gaps in cloud native technical domains are documented.
The Public Sector User Group scheduled two back-to-back sessions at KubeCon, including a meetup and a Birds of a Feather session led by co-chairs William Crum and Daniel Moch to review white papers and discuss adoption challenges in government and regulated environments.
Key facts and where they come from
- CNCF is launching its User Group Program at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America.
The CNCF End User Community is launching its User Group Program at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America.
- User Groups report directly to the CNCF Technical Advisory Board.
serves the common need of the end user community, and reports directly to the CNCF Technical Advisory Board (TAB).
- The program is launching with four distinct user groups.
The program launches with four groups, each serving a distinct end user community:
- User Groups must hold at least one public monthly meeting recorded for YouTube.
holds at least one public monthly meeting that is recorded and posted to YouTube, and reports regularly on its health and work to the TAB.
The catch
- The announcement does not state the specific metrics or required timeline for a Technical Community Group to graduate into a formal User Group.
- CNCF says User Groups must conduct monthly public meetings recorded for YouTube and report regularly to the TAB, adding governance requirements for group chairs.
