add rn and version bump

Signed-off-by: Karol Szwaj <karol.szwaj@gmail.com>

Author: cnvergence

VERSION

@@ -1 +1 @@
-v1.7.2
+v1.7.3

release-notes/v1.7.3.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+date: April 28, 2026
+
+# Changes that are expected to cause an incompatibility with previous versions, such as deletions or modifications to existing APIs.
+breaking changes: |
+  Bumped `google.golang.org/grpc` to v1.79.3 to address CVE-2026-33186 (Critical, gRPC-Go authorization bypass via non-canonical HTTP/2 `:path` header).
+  Bumped `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk` to v1.40.0 to address CVE-2026-24051 (High, OpenTelemetry Go SDK path hijacking on macOS/Darwin).
+
+# Updates addressing vulnerabilities, security flaws, or compliance requirements.
+security updates: |
+
+# New features or capabilities added in this release.
+new features: |
+  Added support for defining Envoy Proxy image, pullPolicy, and pullSecrets via the helm chart. Note that to merge these helm-configured values with EnvoyProxy resources, the EnvoyProxy must include `mergeType: StrategicMerge` or `mergeType: JSONMerge`.
+
+bug fixes: |
+  Fixed a control plane panic caused by concurrent Status mutation racing with the watchable Map coalesce goroutine.
+  Fixed `ws` and `wss` Backend appProtocols to force HTTP/1.1 upstream connections instead of negotiating HTTP/2, avoiding compatibility issues with WebSocket backends that do not support RFC 8441 extended CONNECT.
+  Fixed status conditions not being updated when a route is rejected due to multiple errors.
+  Fixed benchmark JSON report emitting `0` for p99 and p999 percentiles by using the nearest Nighthawk histogram percentiles.
+
+# Enhancements that improve performance.
+performance improvements: |
+
+
+# Deprecated features or APIs.
+deprecations: |
+
+# Other notable changes not covered by the above sections.
+Other changes: |