Previously, including Mandrel 24.2.2.0-Final, it used to be possible to use -agentlib:native-image-agent with an older JDK than the one Mandrel was created with.

i.e., it was possible to set Temurin JDK to 17 or 21, copy libnative-image-agent.so to LD_LIBRARY_PATH and run it. Then use the data in the next step with native-image from e.g. Mandrel 24.2.2.0-Final.

With Mandrel 25.0.0.1, this is no longer possible and native-image-agent must be executed with the same JDK major.

e.g.

native-image-agent: Error:
The current VM (24.0.2+12) is incompatible with the agent, which was built for a JVM with major version 25.
To resolve this issue, run the agent using a JVM with major version 25.

native-image-agent: Error: 
The current VM (17.0.16+8) is incompatible with the agent, which was built for a JVM with major version 25.
To resolve this issue, run the agent using a JVM with major version 25

I don't think this is a bug per se. It actually makes sense, so perhaps this is rather a change to be documented?