Upgrade urgency LOW: This is the first release candidate of Valkey 8.0, with performance, reliability, and observability improvements. It includes asynchronous I/O threading, better cluster scaling reliability, dual primary-replica channel for faster full synchronization, per-slot metrics for resource management, and experimental RDMA support for increased throughput and reduced latency. This release is fully compatible with Redis OSS 7.2.4.

Un-deprecated Commands - Cluster

• Un-deprecate the CLUSTER SLOTS command. (#536)

New/Modified Commands - Core

• Add SCRIPT SHOW sub-command to dump scripts via SHA1. (#617)
• Add NOSCORES option to ZSCAN command. (#324)
• Add NOVALUES option to HSCAN command. (Redis#12765)
• Expose Lua os.clock() API to allow scripts to determine how long the script has been executing. (Redis#12971)
• Implement CLIENT KILL MAXAGE <MAXAGE>. (Redis#12299)
• Allow running WAITAOF in scripts, remove NOSCRIPT flag. (Redis#12977)
• Support XREAD[GROUP] with BLOCK option in scripts. (Redis#12596)
• Introduce + as a special ID for the last item in stream on XREAD Command. (Redis#7388, Redis#13117)

New/Modified Commands - Cluster

• Introduce CLUSTER SLOT-STATS command which allows tracking of per slot metrics for key count, CPU utilization, network bytes in, and network bytes out. (#20, #351)
• Add TIMEOUT option to CLUSTER SETSLOT command. (#556, #445)

New/Modified Metrics - Core

• Introduce per-client metrics for network traffic and command execution in CLIENT LIST and CLIENT INFO. (#327)
• Add metrics for DB memory overhead and rehashing status to INFO MEMORY and MEMORY STATS. (Redis#12913)
• Add pubsub_clients metric to INFO CLIENTS. (Redis#12849)
• Add metrics for client buffer limit disconnections to INFO. (Redis#12476)
• Add metrics for monitoring clients using WATCH command and watched keys. (Redis#12966)
• Added allocator muzzy memory metrics to INFO MEMORY and MEMORY STATS. (Redis#12996)

New Features - Core

• Support replica redirect for read/write operations to primary in standalone mode. (#325)
• Add server config for cluster blacklist TTL. (#738)
• Add availability zone server config. (#700)

New Features - Cluster

• Support IPv4 and IPv6 dual stack and client-specific IPs in clusters. (#736)
• Support BY/GET options for SORT/SORT_RO in cluster mode when pattern implies a single slot. (Redis#12728)

Compatibility Improvements - Core

• Derive RDB and module child process names based on server start name for compatibility. (#454)
• Update server identity in serverPanic output based on extended-redis-compatibility config. (#415)

Compatibility Improvements - Sentinel

• Accept redis-sentinel to start Valkey in sentinel mode. (#731)

Performance/Efficiency Improvements - Core

• Introduce dual channel for more efficient full sync replication. (#60)
• Introduce async IO threading for improved multi-threaded performance. (#763, #758)
• Embed key directly in main dictionary entry for improved memory efficiency. (#541)
• Use thread-local storage to reduce atomic contention in updating memory metrics. (#674)
• Reduce redundant calls to prepareClientToWrite for continuous addReply*. (#670)
• Optimize the logic for checking conversion to skip list during ZADD operations. (#806)
• Optimize sdsfree with zfree_with_size to avoid redundant size calculation. (#453)
• Combine events to eliminate redundant kevent(2) calls. (#638)
• Introduce shared query buffer for client reads to reduce memory usage. (#258)
• Optimize CRC64 performance for large batches by processing bytes in parallel. (#350)
• Use SOCK_NONBLOCK to reduce system calls for outgoing connections. (#293)
• Enable accept4() detection on specific versions of various platforms. (#294)
• Convert CRC16 slot table to fixed-size array for improved memory efficiency. (Redis#13112)
• Run SCRIPT FLUSH truly asynchronously and close Lua interpreter in a background thread. (Redis#13087)
• Optimize DEL command to avoid redundant deletions for expired keys. (Redis#13080)
• Improve defragmentation for large bins to enhance memory efficiency. (Redis#12996)
• Optimize hash table resizing to include empty dictionaries. (Redis#12819)
• Reduce performance impact of dictionary rehashing by optimizing bucket processing. (Redis#12899)
• Optimize performance for simultaneous client [P|S]UNSUBSCRIBE. (Redis#12838)
• Optimize CPU cache efficiency during dictionary rehashing. (Redis#5692)
• Optimize ZRANGE offset location from linear search to skip list jump. (Redis#12450)
• Fix aeSetDontWait timing to avoid unnecessary waits in aeProcessEvent. (Redis#12068)

Performance/Efficiency Improvements - Cluster

• Add lightweight cluster message header for Pub/Sub messages. (#654)
• Minor performance improvement in Valkey cluster by avoid initializing key buffer in getKeysResult. (#631)
• Cache CLUSTER SLOTS response to improve throughput and reduce latency. (#53)
• Replace slots_to_channels radix tree with slot-specific dictionaries for shard channels. (Redis#12804)
• Optimize KEYS command when pattern includes hashtag and implies a single slot. (Redis#12754)
• Optimize SCAN command with MATCH when pattern implies a single slot. (Redis#12536)
• Replace cluster metadata with slot specific dictionaries to reduce memory usage when using Valkey cluster. (Redis#11695, Redis#12704)

Reliability Improvements - Core

• Limit tracking custom errors (e.g. from Lua) while allowing normal errors to be tracked (#500, Redis#13141)
• Manage maximum number of new connections per cycle to prevent connection storms. (Redis#12178)

Reliability Improvements - Cluster

• Reduce fail-over time in Valkey cluster when multiple sequential fail-overs occurred by resetting failover_auth_time when the new primary node goes down. (#782)
• Restrict node failure marking to primaries with assigned slots. (#634)
• Enhance cluster meet reliability under link failures. (#461)
• Improve reliability of slot migration in Valkey clusters. (#445)

Usability Improvements - Core

• Re-brand and refine latency report messages. (#644)
• Optimize ACL LOAD to avoid disconnecting clients whose users are unchanged. (Redis#12171)

Usability Improvements - Cluster

• Adjust log levels for various cluster-related logs to improve clarity. (#633)
• Maintain deterministic ordering of replica(s) in CLUSTER SLOTS response. (#265)

Usability Improvements - CLI

• Add prompt message when Ctrl-C is pressed in valkey-cli. (#702)
• Keep an in-memory history of all commands in valkey-cli so that sensitive commands can be shown within the same session. (Redis#12862)

Module Improvements - Core

• Add ValkeyModule_TryCalloc() and ValkeyModule_TryRealloc() to handle allocation failures gracefully. (Redis#12985)
• Make ValkeyModule_Yield thread-safe by handling events in the main thread. (Redis#12905)
• Allow modules to declare new ACL categories. (Redis#12486)

Module Improvements - Cluster

• Add API ValkeyModule_ClusterKeySlot and ValkeyModule_ClusterCanonicalKeyNameInSlot. (Redis#13069)

Behavior Changes - Core

• Re-brand the Lua debugger. (#603)
• Change default pidfile from redis.pid to valkey.pid. (#378)
• Abort transactions on nested MULTI or WATCH commands. (#723)
• Ensure keys that match the SCAN filter are not lazily expired and return an error for invalid types. (#501)
• Rename redis in AOF logs and proc title to valkey-aof-rewrite. (#393)
• Change default syslog-ident from redis to valkey. (#390)
• Update Redis to Valkey in serverLog messages in server.c file. (#231)
• Remove Redis from various error reply messages. See GitHub PR for more details. (#206)
• Reject empty strings for configs dir, dbfilename, and cluster-config-file. (#636)
• Change key-spec flag from RW to OW for SINTERSTORE command. (Redis#12917)
• Return more precise error messages for some cases verifying keys during script execution. (Redis#12707)
• Return errors for BITCOUNT and BITPOS with non-existing keys or invalid arguments instead of zero. (Redis#11734)
• Validate BITCOUNT arguments before key existence check. (Redis#12394)
• Redact ACL username information and mark *-key-file-pass configs as sensitive. (Redis#12860)
• Allow MULTI/EXEC to use a small amount of additional memory beyond the used-memory limit. (Redis#12961)

Behavior Changes - Cluster

• Allow CLUSTER NODES/INFO/MYID/MYSHARDID during loading state. (#596)
• Make cluster replicas return ASK and TRYAGAIN during slot migration. (#495)

Behavior Changes - Sentinel

• Replace master-reboot-down-after-period with primary-reboot-down-after-period in sentinel.conf. (#647)

Bug Fixes - Core

• Fix a bug that caused LRU/LFU inconsistencies for some integer objects. (#250)
• Fix a bug where Valkey may use a sub-optimal encoding for some data types. (Redis#13148)
• Fix propagation of entries_read by calling streamPropagateGroupID unconditionally. (Redis#12898)
• Fix race condition issues between the main thread and module threads. (Redis#12817)
• Wake blocked clients ASAP in next beforeSleep for WAITAOF. (Redis#12627)
• Fix crash in crash-report and improve thread management with RW locks. (Redis#12623)

Bug Fixes - Cluster

• Fix a bug where a shard returns the incorrect slot slot information in CLUSTER SHARDS command on primary failure. (#790)
• Allow module authentication to succeed when the cluster is down. (#693)
• Fix PONG message processing for primary-ship tracking during fail-overs. (Redis#13055)
• Prevent double freeing of cluster link with DEBUG CLUSTERLINK KILL. (Redis#12930)
• Unsubscribe all clients from replica for shard channel if the primary ownership changes. (Redis#12577)

Bug Fixes - Tooling

• Fix valkey-check-aof misidentifying data in manifest format as MP-AOF. (Redis#12958)
• Fix valkey-cli to respect the --count option without requiring --pattern. (Redis#13092)
• Fix valkey-benchmark to distribute operations across all slots owned by a node in cluster mode. (Redis#12986)

Internal Codebase Improvements

• Enable debug asserts for cluster and sentinel tests. (#588)
• Introduce a minimal debugger for Tcl integration test suite. (#683)
• Set up clang-format GitHub action for automated code formatting checks. (#538)
• Replace custom atomic logic with C11 _Atomics. (#490)
• Add fast fail option for Tcl test cases. (#482)
• Introduce a simple unit test framework. (#460)
• An initial simple unit test framework. (#344)
• Introduce Codecov for automated code coverage tracking. (#316)
• Remove deprecated redis-trib CLI program. (#281)
• Add -fno-omit-frame-pointer to default compilation flags to improve debuggability. (Redis#12973)
• Refactor the per-slot dict-array db.c into a new kvstore data structure. (Redis#12822)
• Unified database rehash method for both standalone and cluster modes. (Redis#12848)
• Clarify and decouple the sampling logic in eviction to improve readability. (Redis#12781)
• Rewrite large printf calls to smaller ones for readability. (Redis#12257)

Experimental

• Introduce Valkey Over RDMA transport (experimental). (#477)

Special Thanks

We appreciate the efforts of all who contributed code to this release!

lan Slang, Binbin, Brennan, Chen Tianjie, Cui Fliter, Daniel House, Darren Jiang, David Carlier, Debing Sun, Dingrui, Dmitry Polyakovsky, Eran Liberty, Gabi Ganam, George Guimares, Guillaume Koenig, Guybe, Harkrishn Patro, Hassaan Khan, Hwang Si Yeon, ICHINOSE Shogo, icy17, Ikko Eltociear Ashimine, iKun, Itamar Haber, Jachin, Jacob Murphy, Jason Elbaum, Jeff Liu, John Sully, John Vandenberg, Jonathan Wright, Jonghoonpark, Joe Hu, Josiah Carlson, Juho Kim, judeng, Jun Luo, K.G. Wang, Karthik Subbarao, Karthick Ariyaratnam, kell0gg, Kyle Kim, Leibale Eidelman, LiiNen, Lipeng Zhu, Lior Kogan, Lior Lahav, Madelyn Olson, Makdon, Maria Markova, Mason Hall, Matthew Douglass, meiravgri, michalbiesek, Mike Dolan, Mikel Olasagasti Uranga, Moshe Kaplan, mwish, naglera, NAM UK KIM, Neal Gompa, nitaicaro, Nir Rattner, Oran Agra, Ouri Half, Ozan Tezcan, Parth, PatrickJS, Pengfei Han, Pierre, Ping Xie, poiuj, pshankinclarke, ranshid, Ronen Kalish, Roshan Khatri, Samuel Adetunji, Sankar, secwall, Sergey Fedorov, Sher_Sun, Shivshankar, skyfirelee, Slava Koyfman, Subhi Al Hasan, sundb, Ted Lyngmo, Thomas Fline, tison, Tom Morris, Tyler Bream, uriyage, Viktor Söderqvist, Vitaly, Vitah Lin, VoletiRam, w. ian douglas, WangYu, Wen Hui, Wenwen Chen, Yaacov Hazan, Yanqi Lv, Yehoshua Hershberg, Yves LeBras, zalj, Zhao Zhao, zhenwei pi, zisong.cw