The enhancement separates node lifecycle management and pod eviction into distinct components. Previously, the node lifecycle controller handled both marking nodes as unhealthy and evicting pods. Now, a dedicated taint eviction controller manages pod evictions. The node lifecycle controller is solely responsible for applying taints to unhealthy nodes. This separation improves code organization and facilitates customization of taint-based eviction. The feature gate SeparateTaintEvictionController has graduated to General Availability. Users can disable taint-based eviction by configuring the kube-controller-manager. Further details are available in the KEP and the beta announcement. The developers acknowledge the significant contributions from numerous individuals in bringing this feature to stability.