CloudNativePG 1.29 introduces extension image catalogs via ClusterImageCatalog, allowing Cluster manifests to reference PostgreSQL extensions by name only, with the operator resolving image references, paths, and dependencies from a centralized catalog. The community catalog ships seven extensions (pgvector, PostGIS, pgaudit, timescaledb-oss, wal2json, pg-ivm, pg-crash) for PostgreSQL 18. This decouples extension image management from individual Cluster manifests, enabling fleet-wide rolling updates when the catalog is bumped, enforcing separation of concerns between platform and application teams, and providing a clean upgrade path across PostgreSQL major versions. The feature requires Kubernetes 1.35+ (or 1.33/1.34 with ImageVolume feature gate) and PostgreSQL 18's extension_control_path.
