Kyverno 1.16 delivers major advancements in policy-as-code for Kubernetes, centered on a new generation of CEL-based policies now available in beta, with a clear path to GA. This release introduces partial support for namespaced CEL policies to confine enforcement and minimize RBAC, aligning with least-privilege best practices. Observability is significantly enhanced with full metrics for CEL policies and native event generation, enabling precise visibility and faster troubleshooting. Security and governance get sharper controls through fine-grained policy exceptions tailored for CEL policies, and validation use cases broaden with the integration of an HTTP authorizer into ValidatingPolicy. Finally, we’re debuting the Kyverno SDK, laying the foundation for ecosystem integrations and custom tooling, with maturity planned in 1.17. Join this session to learn what’s new, how to adopt CEL policies confidently, and what’s coming next.