.. SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
.. SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0

.. py:currentmodule:: cuda.pathfinder

``cuda-pathfinder`` 1.6.0 Release notes
=======================================

Highlights
----------

* :func:`find_nvidia_binary_utility` now probes configured binary directories
  directly instead of delegating to ``shutil.which``, avoiding implicit
  current-working-directory lookup on Windows. If those locations miss, a new
  CTK-root canary fallback resolves ``cudart`` through the OS dynamic loader,
  derives its CUDA Toolkit root, and searches that root's ``bin`` layout. With
  multiple visible toolkits, the result follows the ``cudart`` selected by the
  dynamic loader and may differ from the executable selected by a shell.
  (`PR #2196 <https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/pull/2196>`_)

* Add dynamic-library loading and header discovery for the cuQuantum libraries
  ``cudensitymat``, ``cupauliprop``, ``cutensornet``, ``custabilizer``, and
  ``custatevec`` on Linux.
  (`PR #2376 <https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/pull/2376>`_)

* Add dynamic-library loading support for ``cutensorMp`` on Linux, including
  preloading the packaged CUDA runtime in CUDA 12 wheel-only environments.
  (`PR #2374 <https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/pull/2374>`_)

* Add Windows Arm64 discovery for ``cudla.dll``, enabling
  ``load_nvidia_dynamic_lib("cudla")`` to find cuDLA in the CUDA Toolkit's
  architecture-specific ``bin`` directories.
  (`PR #2274 <https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/pull/2274>`_)

Internal maintenance
--------------------

* Clean up dead and misleading error-handling code in the Linux and Windows
  dynamic-library loaders; runtime behavior is unchanged.
  (`PR #2239 <https://github.com/NVIDIA/cuda-python/pull/2239>`_)
