v26.38.2 release notes (final)

Adds the v26.38.2 section to the releases index and a row to the
self-managed operator compatibility table.

Dates are the real release dates for this train: Cloud 2026-08-24,
Self-Managed 2026-08-25. This train has no RC snapshots, so `final` is
its only snapshot.

Author: claude

doc/user/content/releases/_index.md

@@ -19,6 +19,16 @@ Starting with the v26.1.0 release, Materialize releases on a weekly schedule for
 both Cloud and Self-Managed. See [Release schedule](/releases/schedule) for details.
 {{</ note >}}
 
+## v26.38.2
+*Released to Materialize Cloud: 2026-08-24* <br>
+*Released to Materialize Self-Managed: 2026-08-25* <br>
+
+### Agent Skills {#v26.38.2-agent-skills}
+- **materialize-debug-freshness**: New skill that diagnoses why an object is behind wall-clock time, sweeping source and sink status, attributing lag hop by hop through `mz_materialization_lag`, and — once hydration is confirmed — ranking the dataflows on a replica and then that dataflow's operators back to the query clause responsible.
+
+### Bug Fixes {#v26.38.2-bug-fixes}
+- Fixed slow catalog queries immediately after a zero-downtime upgrade that migrated builtin materialized views: the migrated views and everything downstream of them used to hydrate all at once at cut-over, spiking CPU on `mz_catalog_server`, and now hydrate before cut-over instead.
+
 ## v26.38.0
 *Released to Materialize Cloud: 2026-08-19* <br>
 

doc/user/data/self_managed/self_managed_operator_compatibility.yml

@@ -5,6 +5,11 @@ columns:
   - column: Release date
   - column: Notes
 rows:
+  - Materialize Operator: v26.38.2
+    orchestratord version: v26.38.2
+    environmentd version: v26.38.2
+    Release date: "2026-08-25"
+    Notes: "See [v26.38.2 release notes](/releases/#v26382)"
   - Materialize Operator: v26.38
     orchestratord version: v26.38
     environmentd version: v26.38