3 files changed, 105 insertions, 44 deletions
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.12.md b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.12.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e2045d7bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.12.md
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+# Release 2.12 (2022-12-06)
+
+* On Linux, Nix can now run builds in a user namespace where they run
+  as root (UID 0) and have 65,536 UIDs available.
+  <!-- FIXME: move this to its own section about system features -->
+  This is primarily useful for running containers such as `systemd-nspawn`
+  inside a Nix build. For an example, see [`tests/systemd-nspawn/nix`][nspawn].
+
+  [nspawn]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/67bcb99700a0da1395fa063d7c6586740b304598/tests/systemd-nspawn.nix.
+
+  A build can enable this by setting the derivation attribute:
+
+  ```
+  requiredSystemFeatures = [ "uid-range" ];
+  ```
+
+  The `uid-range` [system feature] requires the [`auto-allocate-uids`]
+  setting to be enabled.
+
+  [system feature]: ../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-system-features
+
+* Nix can now automatically pick UIDs for builds, removing the need to
+  create `nixbld*` user accounts. See [`auto-allocate-uids`].
+
+  [`auto-allocate-uids`]: ../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-auto-allocate-uids
+
+* On Linux, Nix has experimental support for running builds inside a
+  cgroup. See
+  [`use-cgroups`](../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-cgroups).
+
+* `<nix/fetchurl.nix>` now accepts an additional argument `impure` which
+  defaults to `false`.  If it is set to `true`, the `hash` and `sha256`
+  arguments will be ignored and the resulting derivation will have
+  `__impure` set to `true`, making it an impure derivation.
+
+* If `builtins.readFile` is called on a file with context, then only
+  the parts of the context that appear in the content of the file are
+  retained.  This avoids a lot of spurious errors where strings end up
+  having a context just because they are read from a store path
+  ([#7260](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/7260)).
+
+* `nix build --json` now prints some statistics about top-level
+  derivations, such as CPU statistics when cgroups are enabled.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.13.md b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.13.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..168708113
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.13.md
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Release 2.13 (2023-01-17)
+
+* The `repeat` and `enforce-determinism` options have been removed
+  since they had been broken under many circumstances for a long time.
+
+* You can now use [flake references] in the [old command line interface], e.g.
+
+   [flake references]: ../command-ref/new-cli/nix3-flake.md#flake-references
+   [old command line interface]: ../command-ref/main-commands.md
+
+  ```shell-session
+  # nix-build flake:nixpkgs -A hello
+  # nix-build -I nixpkgs=flake:github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05 \
+      '<nixpkgs>' -A hello
+  # NIX_PATH=nixpkgs=flake:nixpkgs nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A hello
+  ```
+
+* Instead of "antiquotation", the more common term [string interpolation](../language/string-interpolation.md) is now used consistently.
+  Historical release notes were not changed.
+
+* Error traces have been reworked to provide detailed explanations and more
+  accurate error locations. A short excerpt of the trace is now shown by
+  default when an error occurs.
+
+* Allow explicitly selecting outputs in a store derivation installable, just like we can do with other sorts of installables.
+  For example,
+  ```shell-session
+  # nix build /nix/store/gzaflydcr6sb3567hap9q6srzx8ggdgg-glibc-2.33-78.drv^dev
+  ```
+  now works just as
+  ```shell-session
+  # nix build nixpkgs#glibc^dev
+  ```
+  does already.
+
+* On Linux, `nix develop` now sets the
+  [*personality*](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/personality.2.html)
+  for the development shell in the same way as the actual build of the
+  derivation. This makes shells for `i686-linux` derivations work
+  correctly on `x86_64-linux`.
+
+* You can now disable the global flake registry by setting the `flake-registry`
+  configuration option to an empty string. The same can be achieved at runtime with
+  `--flake-registry ""`.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-next.md b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-next.md
index bf51aa1f7..7e8344e63 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-next.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-next.md
@@ -1,48 +1,22 @@
 # Release X.Y (202?-??-??)
 
-* `<nix/fetchurl.nix>` now accepts an additional argument `impure` which
-  defaults to `false`.  If it is set to `true`, the `hash` and `sha256`
-  arguments will be ignored and the resulting derivation will have
-  `__impure` set to `true`, making it an impure derivation.
-
-* If `builtins.readFile` is called on a file with context, then only the parts
-  of that context that appear in the content of the file are retained.
-  This avoids a lot of spurious errors where some benign strings end-up having
-  a context just because they are read from a store path
-  ([#7260](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/7260)).
-
-* Nix can now automatically pick UIDs for builds, removing the need to
-  create `nixbld*` user accounts.
-
-  See [`auto-allocate-uids`].
-
-  [`auto-allocate-uids`]: (../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-auto-allocate-uids)
-
-* On Linux, Nix can now run builds in a user namespace where the build
-  runs as root (UID 0) and has 65,536 UIDs available.
-
-  <!-- FIXME: move this to its own section about system features -->
-
-  This is primarily useful for running containers such as `systemd-nspawn`
-  inside a Nix build. For an example, see [`tests/systemd-nspawn/nix`][nspawn].
-
-  [nspawn]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/67bcb99700a0da1395fa063d7c6586740b304598/tests/systemd-nspawn.nix.
-
-  A build can enable this by by setting the derivation attribute:
-
+* A new function `builtins.readFileType` is available. It is similar to
+  `builtins.readDir` but acts on a single file or directory.
+
+* The `builtins.readDir` function has been optimized when encountering not-yet-known
+  file types from POSIX's `readdir`. In such cases the type of each file is/was
+  discovered by making multiple syscalls. This change makes these operations
+  lazy such that these lookups will only be performed if the attribute is used.
+  This optimization affects a minority of filesystems and operating systems.
+
+* In derivations that use structured attributes, you can now use `unsafeDiscardReferences`
+  to disable scanning a given output for runtime dependencies:
+  ```nix
+  __structuredAttrs = true;
+  unsafeDiscardReferences.out = true;
   ```
-  requiredSystemFeatures = [ "uid-range" ];
-  ```
-
-  The `uid-range` [system feature] requires the [`auto-allocate-uids`]
-  setting to be enabled.
-
-  [system feature]: (../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-system-features),
-
-* On Linux, Nix has experimental support for running builds inside a
-  cgroup.
-
-  See [`use-cgroups`](../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-cgroups).
+  This is useful e.g. when generating self-contained filesystem images with
+  their own embedded Nix store: hashes found inside such an image refer
+  to the embedded store and not to the host's Nix store.
 
-* `nix build --json` now prints some statistics about top-level
-  derivations, such as CPU statistics when cgroups are enabled.
+  This requires the `discard-references` experimental feature.