Add release notes for 5.4.0

Author: markstory

2026/04/27/cakephp_540RC1.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,82 @@
+CakePHP 5.4.0-RC1 Released
+============================
+
+The CakePHP core team is happy to announce the first release candidate for
+CakePHP 5.4.0. The 5.4 release includes several behavior changes to increase
+correctness and new features. The highlights of those include:
+
+
+What's new in 5.4.0
+-------------------
+
+The `migration guide
+<https://book.cakephp.org/5.next/en/appendices/5-4-migration-guide.html>`_ has
+a complete list of what's new in 5.4.0. We recommend you give that page a read
+when upgrading as it notes the behavior changes present in 5.4.0.
+
+- The default eager loading strategy for ``HasMany`` and ``BelongsToMany`` associations
+  has changed from ``select`` to ``subquery``. If you need the previous behavior,
+  explicitly set ``'strategy' => 'select'`` when defining associations.
+- ``Model.afterSaveCommit`` and ``Model.afterDeleteCommit`` events are now fired
+  when ``save()`` or ``delete()`` is called inside an outer transaction.
+- ``Collection`` had ``keys()``, ``values()``, ``implode()``, ``when()`` and
+  ``unless()`` methods added.
+- Commands now have ``$this->io`` and ``$this->args`` set by CakePHP. This will
+  become the default in 6.0, and ``execute()`` will no longer receive io & args
+  parameters.
+- Database queries now support ``notBetween()``, ``inOrNull()``,
+  ``notInOrNull()``, ``isDistinctFrom()``, ``isNotDistinctFrom()``,
+  ``except()``, ``exceptAll()``, and ``stringAgg()`` operators/functions added.
+- Support for ``brin``, ``hash``, ``gin``, and ``spgist`` indexes for postgres
+  was added.
+- ``TestCase::mockModel()`` has been added to enable mocking of table classes
+  using Mockery.
+- New filesystem utilities were added for fluent file discovery with pattern
+  matching, and cross-platform path manipulation was added.
+- ``Security::encrypt()`` can now be configured to use longer keys with separate
+  encryption and authentication keys that are derived from the provided key.
+- Added ``Text::mask()`` method which masks a portion of a string with
+  a repeated character.
+
+How you Can Help
+----------------
+
+You can help deliver 5.4.0 by contributing in one of many ways:
+
+#. Check the `documentation <https://book.cakephp.org/5.next/en/>`_ for mistakes,
+   outdated, unclear or broken examples. We've been trying to update the
+   documentation as we go, but there are likely examples or sections we've
+   missed.
+#. Try it out! Give CakePHP 5.4.0 a test drive. Let us know how upgrading
+   went and if there were any rough spots.
+#. File issues for regressions in existing features, or suggest new features.
+   Even if those features don't make it into 5.4.0, we're early in the process
+   of planning 5.5 and 6.0 and value community feedback.
+
+Contributors to 5.4.0-RC1
+-------------------------
+
+Thank you to all the contributors that have contributed to this release:
+
+- ADmad
+- Application-drop-up
+- celsowm
+- Jamison Bryant
+- Jasper Smet
+- Joachim Rey
+- Kevin Pfeifer
+- Mallik Hassan
+- Mark Scherer
+- Mark Story
+- Masatoshi Ogiwara
+- othercorey
+
+As always, a huge thanks to all the community members that helped make this
+release happen by reporting issues and sending pull requests.
+
+Download a `packaged release on github
+<https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/releases>`_.
+
+.. author:: markstory
+.. categories:: news
+.. tags:: release,news

master.rst

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ Sitemap
 .. toctree::
    :maxdepth: 1
 
+   2026/04/25/cakephp_540RC1
    2026/04/17/cakephp_534
    2026/03/18/cakephp_533
    2026/02/24/cakephp_532