8.1.0 release plan

[AA-Turner]

I intend to release Sphinx 8.1.0 next week (w/c 7 Oct).

8.1.0 will probably be the last version to support Python 3.10, per our support policy.

Please let me know if there are any features or bugfixes you would like to have included in the release, or any other matters.

I am currently looking to include:

• Mark Builder.write() as final #12767 (or a different resolution to Latex builder doesn't emit the write-started event #12680)
• intersphinx: fix flipped use of intersphinx_cache_limit. #12905
• Ensure deterministic resolution of toctree #12888
• Log differences in configuration from the pickled environment #12949

I'll look to review these PRs over the coming days.

A

cc: @sphinx-doc/developers @sphinx-doc/triagers

P.S.: Ideally we would be testing on and declare support for Python 3.14, but this is blocked, see #12978.