spanner: v1.96.0

1.96.0 (2026-10-07)

Features

• all: Update supported go versions (#20520) (90413d3)
• spanner: Add experimental vtprotobuf decoding with ExperimentalBorrowRows under the spanner_vtproto build tag (#20642) (fdbd4f4)

Bug Fixes

• spanner: Keep DCP transaction on its channel while it drains (#20618) (93dfc20)
• spanner: Prioritize leader replica for read-write transactions in location-aware routing (#20620) (a524d66)
• spanner: Record streaming built-in metrics per result stream (#20596) (be75f7e)
• spanner: Retry and resume BatchWrite streams on UNAVAILABLE (#20623) (a302277)

Performance Improvements

• spanner: Skip builtin metrics tracer allocation when metrics are disabled (#20582) (9971a0c)
• spanner: Skip reading response headers when no latency sink is enabled (#20583) (3dcc2c3)