Add CNCF Incubation announcement blog post (#1146)

Author: curfew-marathon

blog/authors.yml

@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ eharris:
   name: Ewan Harris
   url: https://github.com/ewanharris
   image_url: /img/blog/authors/ewan.jpg
+jakub:
+  name: Jakub Hertyk
+  url: https://github.com/curfew-marathon
+  image_url: /img/blog/authors/jakub.jpg
 miparnisari:
   name: Maria Ines Parnisari
   url: https://github.com/miparnisari

blog/incubation-announcement.md

@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+---
+title: OpenFGA Accepted into CNCF Incubation 🎉
+description: OpenFGA has been accepted into the Cloud Native Computing Foundation Incubation stage
+slug: incubation-announcement
+date: 2026-01-07
+authors: [aaguiar, jakub]
+tags: [announcement]
+image: /img/og-rich-embed.png
+hide_table_of_contents: false
+---
+# OpenFGA Accepted into CNCF Incubation 🎉
+
+OpenFGA has been accepted as a CNCF **Incubation** project! The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) [voted to advance OpenFGA](https://github.com/cncf/toc/issues/1287#issuecomment-3458442973) from Sandbox to Incubation status, recognizing years of community work and real-world adoption. This places OpenFGA on the same maturity path as other CNCF projects like OpenTelemetry, Keycloak, Artifact Hub, and Backstage. Learn more at the CNCF joint announcement: [OpenFGA becomes a CNCF Incubating Project](https://www.cncf.io/blog/2025/11/11/openfga-becomes-a-cncf-incubating-project/).
+
+## Why Incubation Matters
+
+Incubation signals that OpenFGA is production-ready with a healthy, diverse contributor base and real-world adoption at scale. For organizations evaluating OpenFGA, this milestone validates the project's maturity, governance, and long-term sustainability. The CNCF due diligence process assessed our security posture, documentation, community health, and adoption metrics—all meeting the standards required for broad enterprise use.
+
+Learn more about [CNCF project stages](https://www.cncf.io/projects/) and review our [due diligence documentation](https://github.com/cncf/toc/blob/main/projects/openfga/openfga-incubation-dd.md).
+
+## Technical Maturity Since Sandbox
+
+Since joining CNCF as a Sandbox project in December 2022, OpenFGA has evolved significantly:
+
+- **Performance improvements**: Substantial optimizations in query execution and caching, enabling sub-millisecond authorization checks at scale
+- **Enhanced capabilities**: Introduction of conditional tuples, modular models, and list users functionality to support more complex authorization scenarios
+- **Expanded ecosystem**: New SDKs, database adapters (including SQLite), Terraform provider, and IDE plugins
+- **Production hardening**: Improved observability, configuration options, and operational tooling based on real-world deployment feedback
+- **Security posture**: Comprehensive security assessments, vulnerability management processes, and regular dependency updates
+
+These improvements reflect our commitment to building a reliable, performant authorization system ready for enterprise production use.
+
+## How We Got Here
+
+OpenFGA was open sourced in June 2022 and accepted as a CNCF Sandbox project in December 2022. Since then, we've seen incredible community support:
+
+- Regular community meetings since 2022, available on [our YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@OpenFGA), along with more than 40 presentations from community members.
+- Contributions from the community—whether through questions, feedback, feature requests, PRs, bug reports, or guides and tools built around OpenFGA.
+- [Grafana Labs](https://grafana.com/) joined the maintainer team.
+- 600+ contributors across the OpenFGA organization.
+- 5,000+ GitHub stars across our repositories.
+- Presence at six consecutive KubeCon conferences (US and EU) with breakout sessions and a kiosk. 
+- Production adopters include [Canonical](https://canonical.com/), [Docker](https://www.docker.com), [Grafana Labs](https://grafana.com), [Read AI](https://read.ai/), [Agicap](https://agicap.com), [Headspace](https://headspace.com), [Zuplo](https://zuplo.com), [Sourcegraph](https://sourcegraph.com/), [OpenObserve](https://openobserve.ai/) and [LakeKeeper](https://lakekeeper.io/) along with [many others](https://github.com/openfga/community/blob/main/ADOPTERS.md).
+- Several adopters [went on the record](https://github.com/cncf/toc/tree/main/projects/openfga) in interviews with CNCF around their OpenFGA experience through the due diligence project.
+
+## Thank You
+
+OpenFGA's success is the result of contributions from many individuals and organizations. We want to highlight a few who made significant impact:
+
+### Community Contributors
+
+- [Massimiliano Gori](https://www.linkedin.com/in/massi-gori) believed in OpenFGA early and led integration across Canonical.
+- [Pauline Jamin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulinejamin) spearheaded adoption at [Agicap](https://agicap.com) and presented their learnings at [KubeCon Europe 2024](https://colocatedeventseu2024.sched.com/event/1YFhM/implementing-modern-cloud-native-authorization-using-openfga-andres-aguiar-okta-pauline-jamin-agicap).
+- [JT aka Hawxy](https://github.com/Hawxy) has been maintaining [Fga.net](https://github.com/Hawxy/Fga.Net) for years, and has been graciously providing us feedback since.
+- [Andrew Powers](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-powers-geo) led [Read AI](https://www.read.ai/) implementation supporting collaboration and RAG for enterprise search.
+- [Joao Guerreiro](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joguer) led the implementation at [Grafana](https://grafana.com/) and presented their journey at [KubeCon Europe 2025](https://kccnceu2025.sched.com/event/1txIJ/from-chaos-to-control-migrating-access-control-to-openfga-in-a-multi-tenant-world-jo-guerreiro-grafana-labs-poovamraj-thanganadar-thiagarajan-okta).
+- [Dan Cech](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dancech) from [Grafana](https://grafana.com/) contributed the SQLite adapter and serves as a maintainer.
+- [Nathan Totten](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathantotten) led [Zuplo](https://zuplo.com/) integration, implementing [authorization at the edge](https://zuplo.com/examples/openfga) for the API gateway.
+- [Gurleen Sethi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gurleensethi) led the implementation of organization and team management at [Docker, Inc](https://www.docker.com/).
+- [Siddhant Khare](https://github.com/Siddhant-K-code) was the first independent contributor who onboarded as a maintainer of the OpenFGA project.
+- [Maurice Ackel](https://github.com/mauriceackel) donated the [OpenFGA Terraform Provider](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/openfga/openfga/latest/docs), and joined as a maintainer.
+- [Yann D'Isanto](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yann-d-19851110) from [Agicap](https://agicap.com), who contributed the JetBrains IDE plugin.
+- [Martin Besozzi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/embesozzi) has been involved in the OpenFGA community from the beginning, driving integrations with [Keycloak](https://www.keycloak.org/).
+
+### CNCF Support
+
+- [Chris Aniszczyk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caniszczyk) helped guide the project donation and acceptance.
+- [Eddie Knight](https://www.linkedin.com/in/knight1776), [Evan Anderson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/evankanderson), [Marina Moore](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-moore-5a7242105) and [Justin Cappos](https://github.com/JustinCappos) from [CNCF TAG Security](https://tag-security.cncf.io/) supported the self-assessment and helped strengthen our posture for due diligence.
+- [Karena Angell](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenaangell) and [Faseela K](https://www.linkedin.com/in/faseela-k-42178528) helped us navigate the due diligence process and carried much of the heavy lift to make it happen.
+
+## What's Next
+
+Incubation is a milestone, not a destination. Our focus continues on:
+
+- **Performance**: Optimizing latency and throughput for large-scale deployments
+- **Developer Experience**: Enhanced tooling, IDE plugins, and debugging capabilities
+- **Integrations**: Expanding our ecosystem with more identity providers, frameworks, and platforms
+- **Documentation**: Comprehensive guides, tutorials, and real-world implementation patterns
+- **Governance**: Strengthening our contributor pathways and security practices
+
+Our next milestone: CNCF Graduation. Track our progress on the [project roadmap](https://github.com/orgs/openfga/projects/1).
+
+## Get Involved
+
+This achievement belongs to every contributor, user, and community member who has supported OpenFGA. Thank you for being part of our journey!
+
+**New to OpenFGA?** Start here:
+- [Try OpenFGA locally](https://openfga.dev/docs/getting-started) and explore the documentation
+- [Join our CNCF Slack community](https://openfga.dev/community) to ask questions and connect with users
+
+**Already using OpenFGA?**
+- [Star the repo](https://github.com/openfga/openfga) and follow development
+- Share your adoption story—add your organization to our [ADOPTERS.md](https://github.com/openfga/community/blob/main/ADOPTERS.md)
+- Check out the [roadmap](https://github.com/orgs/openfga/projects/1) and contribute to upcoming features
+
+