Summary of Changes

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This pull request systematically removes all references and support for Python 3.8 across the project. This includes updating continuous integration configurations, project metadata, and documentation to reflect Python 3.9 as the new minimum supported version. The changes streamline the development environment by focusing on currently maintained Python versions, ensuring compatibility and reducing maintenance overhead.

Highlights

• Python 3.8 Support Removal: The project has officially dropped support for Python 3.8, aligning with its end-of-life cycle. The minimum supported Python version is now 3.9.
• CI/CD Configuration Updates: All Kokoro configurations and GitHub branch protection rules related to Python 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 have been removed or updated to reflect the new Python version support, including the addition of Python 3.13 and 3.14 for testing.
• Documentation and Project Metadata Alignment: The CONTRIBUTING.rst, README.rst, noxfile.py, owlbot.py, and setup.py files have been updated to reflect the change in supported Python versions, including updates to python_requires and programming language classifiers.
• Cleanup of Testing Artifacts: The testing/constraints-3.8.txt file, which was specific to Python 3.8, has been removed.

• .github/sync-repo-settings.yaml
  • Removed 'unit (3.8)' and 'Samples - Python 3.8' from branch protection rules.
  • Added 'unit (3.13)' and 'Samples - Python 3.13' to branch protection rules.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.6/common.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.6/continuous.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.6/periodic-head.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.6/periodic.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.6/presubmit.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.7/common.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.7/continuous.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.7/periodic-head.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.7/periodic.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.7/presubmit.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.8/common.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.8/continuous.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.8/periodic-head.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.8/periodic.cfg
  • Removed.
• .kokoro/samples/python3.8/presubmit.cfg
  • Removed.
• CONTRIBUTING.rst
  • Updated the list of supported CPython versions to start from 3.9 and include 3.15.
  • Changed example nox commands from py-3.8 to py-3.9.
  • Removed Python 3.8 from the explicit list of supported versions and updated the rationale to state support begins with 3.9.
• README.rst
  • Updated the minimum supported Python version from >= 3.8 to >= 3.9.
  • Updated the unsupported Python versions section from <= 3.7 to <= 3.8.
  • Revised the note regarding Python 3.8's unsupported status and future removal date.
• noxfile.py
  • Removed Python 3.8 from the UNIT_TEST_PYTHON_VERSIONS list.
• owlbot.py
  • Removed Python 3.8 from the unit_test_python_versions list in common.py_library.
• pytest.ini
  • Removed deprecation warnings related to Python 3.7 and 3.8 support.
• samples/snippets/noxfile.py
  • Updated the ignored_versions list within TEST_CONFIG to include Python 3.8 and 3.12, while removing Python 3.9 from the ignored list.
  • Updated the ALL_VERSIONS list to reflect supported Python versions for samples, ranging from 3.9 to 3.14, removing older versions (2.7, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8).
• setup.py
  • Updated python_requires from >=3.8 to >=3.9.
  • Removed Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8 from the classifiers list.
• testing/constraints-3.8.txt
  • Removed.

• Ignored by pattern: .github/workflows/** (1)
  • .github/workflows/unittest.yml

• The pull request was created by holtskinner to remove Python 3.8 support.

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Due to some issues with Python 3.9 and associated dependencies, we no longer have it in our python-multi image used by Kokoro. We rely on GitHub Actions to perform the 3.9-unit and system tests. I will suggest some edits to account for that.

📢 Migration Notice: 📢 This library is moving to the google-cloud-python monorepo soon.

We kept this PR open due to recent activity. We would like to finalize this PR so it can be merged if it is critical.

If we don't hear from the PR author, we will close this PR in the next few days. The PR can then be re-opened in the monorepo once the migration is complete and work can continue there.

This work will be completed after the code migration to google-cloud-python