diff --git a/releases/v1.6.8.toml b/releases/v1.6.8.toml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..e71128ef9821
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releases/v1.6.8.toml
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+# commit to be tagged for new release
+commit = "HEAD"
+
+project_name = "containerd"
+github_repo = "containerd/containerd"
+match_deps = "^github.com/(containerd/[a-zA-Z0-9-]+)$"
+
+# previous release
+previous = "v1.6.7"
+
+pre_release = false
+
+preface = """\
+The eighth patch release for containerd 1.6 fixes a regression in the release
+build binaries which limited the environments they could be run in.
+
+See the changelog for complete list of changes"""
diff --git a/version/version.go b/version/version.go
index 6cefa536a894..a4156cb7a6c2 100644
--- a/version/version.go
+++ b/version/version.go
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ var (
 	Package = "github.com/containerd/containerd"
 
 	// Version holds the complete version number. Filled in at linking time.
-	Version = "1.6.7+unknown"
+	Version = "1.6.8+unknown"
 
 	// Revision is filled with the VCS (e.g. git) revision being used to build
 	// the program at linking time.