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Releases and maintenance

This section describes release cycles, rules, and maintenance schedules for both Ansible community projects: the Ansible community package and ansible-core. The two projects have different versioning systems, maintenance structures, contents, and workflows.

Ansible community package	ansible-core
Uses new versioning (2.10, then 3.0.0)	Continues “classic Ansible” versioning (2.11, then 2.12)
Follows semantic versioning rules	Does not use semantic versioning
Maintains only one version at a time	Maintains latest version plus two older versions
Includes language, runtime, and selected Collections	Includes language, runtime, and builtin plugins
Developed and maintained in Collection repositories	Developed and maintained in ansible/ansible repository

Many community users install the Ansible community package. The Ansible community package offers the functionality that existed in Ansible 2.9, with more than 85 Collections containing thousands of modules and plugins. The ansible-core option is primarily for developers and users who want to install only the collections they need.

Release cycle overview
Preparing for a new release
- Feature freezes
- Release candidates
Development and maintenance workflows
Deprecation cycles
- Ansible community package deprecation cycle
- ansible-core deprecation cycle

Release cycle overview 

The two community releases are related - the release cycle follows this pattern:

Release of a new ansible-core major version, for example, ansible-core 2.11
- New release of ansible-core and two prior versions are now maintained (in this case, ansible-base 2.10, Ansible 2.9)
- Work on new features for ansible-core continues in the devel branch
Collection freeze (no new Collections or new versions of existing Collections) on the Ansible community package
Release candidate for Ansible community package, testing, additional release candidates as necessary
Release of a new Ansible community package major version based on the new ansible-core, for example, Ansible 4.0.0 based on ansible-core 2.11
- Newest release of the Ansible community package is the only version now maintained
- Work on new features continues in Collections
- Individual Collections can make multiple minor and major releases
Minor releases of three maintained ansible-core versions every four weeks (2.11.1)
Minor releases of the single maintained Ansible community package version every four weeks (4.1.0)
Feature freeze on ansible-core
Release candidate for ansible-core, testing, additional release candidates as necessary
Release of the next ansible-core major version, cycle begins again

Ansible community package release cycle 

The Ansible community team typically releases two major versions of the community package per year, on a flexible release cycle that trails the release of ansible-core. This cycle can be extended to allow for larger changes to be properly implemented and tested before a new release is made available. See Ansible Roadmap for upcoming release details. Between major versions, we release a new minor version of the Ansible community package every four weeks. Minor releases include new backwards-compatible features, modules and plugins, as well as bug fixes.

Starting with version 2.10, the Ansible community team guarantees maintenance for only one major community package release at a time. For example, when Ansible 4.0.0 gets released, the team will stop making new 3.x releases. Community members may maintain older versions if desired.

Note

Each Ansible EOL version may issue one final maintenance release at or shortly after the first release of the next version. When this happens, the final maintenance release is EOL at the date it releases.

Note

Older, unmaintained versions of the Ansible community package might contain unfixed security vulnerabilities (CVEs). If you are using a release of the Ansible community package that is no longer maintained, we strongly encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible to benefit from the latest features and security fixes.

Each major release of the Ansible community package accepts the latest released version of each included Collection and the latest released version of ansible-core. For specific schedules and deadlines, see the Ansible Roadmap for each version. Major releases of the Ansible community package can contain breaking changes in the modules and other plugins within the included Collections and in core features.

The Ansible community package follows semantic versioning rules. Minor releases of the Ansible community package accept only backwards-compatible changes in included Collections, that is, not Collections major releases. Collections must also use semantic versioning, so the Collection version numbers reflect this rule. For example, if Ansible 3.0.0 releases with community.general 2.0.0, then all minor releases of Ansible 3.x (such as Ansible 3.1.0 or Ansible 3.5.0) must include a 2.x release of community.general (such as 2.8.0 or 2.9.5) and not 3.x.x or later major releases.

Work in Collections is tracked within the individual Collection repositories.

You can refer to the Ansible package porting guides for tips on updating your playbooks to run on newer versions of Ansible. For Ansible 2.10 and later releases, you can install the Ansible package with pip. See Installing Ansible for details. You can download older Ansible releases from https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/.

Ansible community changelogs 

This table links to the changelogs for each major Ansible release. These changelogs contain the dates and significant changes in each minor release.

Ansible Community Package Release	Status	Core version dependency
8.0.0	In development (unreleased)	2.15
7.x Changelogs	Current	2.14
6.x Changelogs	Unmaintained (end of life) after Ansible 6.7.0	2.13
5.x Changelogs	Unmaintained (end of life)	2.12
4.x Changelogs	Unmaintained (end of life)	2.11
3.x Changelogs	Unmaintained (end of life)	2.10
2.10 Changelogs	Unmaintained (end of life)	2.10

ansible-core release cycle 

ansible-core is developed and released on a flexible release cycle. We can extend this cycle to properly implement and test larger changes before a new release is made available. See ansible-core Roadmaps for upcoming release details.

ansible-core has a graduated maintenance structure that extends to three major releases. For more information, read about the Development and maintenance workflows or see the chart in ansible-core support matrix for the degrees to which current releases are maintained.

Note

Older, unmaintained versions of ansible-core can contain unfixed security vulnerabilities (CVEs). If you are using a release of ansible-core that is no longer maintained, we strongly encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible to benefit from the latest features and security fixes. ansible-core maintenance continues for 3 releases. Thus the latest release receives security and general bug fixes when it is first released, security and critical bug fixes when the next ansible-core version is released, and only security fixes once the follow on to that version is released.

You can refer to the core_porting_guides for tips on updating your playbooks to run on newer versions of ansible-core.

You can install ansible-core with pip. See Installing Ansible for details.

`ansible-core` support matrix 

This table links to the changelogs for each major ansible-core release. These changelogs contain the dates and significant changes in each minor release. Dates listed indicate the start date of the maintenance cycle.

Version	Support	End Of Life	Controller Python	Target Python / PowerShell
2.15	GA: 22 May 2023 Critical: 06 Nov 2023 Security: 20 May 2024	Nov 2024	Python 3.9 - 3.11	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.11 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.14	GA: 07 Nov 2022 Critical: 22 May 2023 Security: 06 Nov 2023	20 May 2024	Python 3.9 - 3.11	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.11 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.13	GA: 23 May 2022 Critical: 07 Nov 2022 Security: 22 May 2023	06 Nov 2023	Python 3.8 - 3.10	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.10 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.12	GA: 08 Nov 2021 Critical: 23 May 2022 Security: 07 Nov 2022	22 May 2023	Python 3.8 - 3.10	Python 2.6 Python 3.5 - 3.10 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.11	GA: 26 Apr 2021 Critical: 08 Nov 2021 Security: 23 May 2022	EOL 07 Nov 2022	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.9	Python 2.6 - 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.9 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.10	GA: 13 Aug 2020 Critical: 26 Apr 2021 Security: 08 Nov 2021	EOL 23 May 2022	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.9	Python 2.6 - 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.9 PowerShell 3 - 5.1
2.9	GA: 31 Oct 2019 Critical: 13 Aug 2020 Security: 26 Apr 2021	EOL 23 May 2022	Python 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.8	Python 2.6 - 2.7 Python 3.5 - 3.8 PowerShell 3 - 5.1

Preparing for a new release 

Feature freezes 

During final preparations for a new release, core developers and maintainers focus on improving the release candidate, not on adding or reviewing new features. We may impose a feature freeze.

A feature freeze means that we delay new features and fixes unrelated to the pending release so we can create the new release as soon as possible.

Release candidates 

We create at least one release candidate before each new major release of Ansible or ansible-core. Release candidates allow the Ansible community to try out new features, test existing playbooks on the release candidate, and report bugs or issues they find.

Ansible and ansible-core tag the first release candidate (RC1) which is usually scheduled to last five business days. If no major bugs or issues are identified during this period, the release candidate becomes the final release.

If there are major problems with the first candidate, the team and the community fix them and tag a second release candidate (RC2). This second candidate lasts for a shorter duration than the first. If no problems have been reported for an RC2 after two business days, the second release candidate becomes the final release.

If there are major problems in RC2, the cycle begins again with another release candidate and repeats until the maintainers agree that all major problems have been fixed.

Development and maintenance workflows 

In between releases, the Ansible community develops new features, maintains existing functionality, and fixes bugs in ansible-core and in the collections included in the Ansible community package.

Ansible community package workflow 

The Ansible community develops and maintains the features and functionality included in the Ansible community package in Collections repositories, with a workflow that looks like this:

Developers add new features and bug fixes to the individual Collections, following each Collection’s rules on contributing.

Each new feature and each bug fix includes a changelog fragment describing the work.

Release engineers create a minor release for the current version every four weeks to ensure that the latest bug fixes are available to users.

At the end of the development period, the release engineers announce which Collections, and which major version of each included Collection, will be included in the next release of the Ansible community package. New Collections and new major versions may not be added after this, and the work of creating a new release begins.

We generally do not provide fixes for unmaintained releases of the Ansible community package, however, there can sometimes be exceptions for critical issues.

Some Collections are maintained by the Ansible team, some by Partner organizations, and some by community teams. For more information on adding features or fixing bugs in Ansible-maintained Collections, see Contributing to Ansible-maintained Collections.

ansible-core workflow 

The Ansible community develops and maintains ansible-core on GitHub, with a workflow that looks like this:

Developers add new features and bug fixes to the devel branch.

Each new feature and each bug fix includes a changelog fragment describing the work.

The development team backports bug fixes to one, two, or three stable branches, depending on the severity of the bug. They do not backport new features.

Release engineers create a minor release for each maintained version every four weeks to ensure that the latest bug fixes are available to users.

At the end of the development period, the release engineers impose a feature freeze and the work of creating a new release begins.

We generally do not provide fixes for unmaintained releases of ansible-core, however, there can sometimes be exceptions for critical issues.

For more information about adding features or fixing bugs in ansible-core see The Ansible Development Cycle.

Generating changelogs 

We generate changelogs based on fragments. When creating new features for existing modules and plugins or fixing bugs, create a changelog fragment describing the change. A changelog entry is not needed for new modules or plugins. Details for those items will be generated from the module documentation.

To add changelog fragments to Collections in the Ansible community package, we recommend the antsibull-changelog utility.

To add changelog fragments for new features and bug fixes in ansible-core, see the changelog examples and instructions in the Community Guide.

Deprecation cycles 

Sometimes we remove a feature, normally in favor of a reimplementation that we hope does a better job. To do this we have a deprecation cycle. First we mark a feature as ‘deprecated’. This is normally accompanied with warnings to the user as to why we deprecated it, what alternatives they should switch to and when (which version) we are scheduled to remove the feature permanently.

Ansible community package deprecation cycle 

Since Ansible is a package of individual collections, the deprecation cycle depends on the collection maintainers. We recommend the collection maintainers deprecate a feature in one Ansible major version and do not remove that feature for one year, or at least until the next major Ansible version. For example, deprecate the feature in 3.1.0 and do not remove the feature until 5.0.0 or 4.0.0 at the earliest. Collections should use semantic versioning, such that the major collection version cannot be changed within an Ansible major version. Therefore, the removal should not happen before the next major Ansible community package release. This is up to each collection maintainer and cannot be guaranteed.

ansible-core deprecation cycle 

The deprecation cycle in ansible-core is normally across 4 feature releases (2.x. where the x marks a feature release). The feature is normally removed in the 4th release after we announce the deprecation. For example, something deprecated in 2.10 will be removed in 2.14. The tracking is tied to the number of releases, not the release numbering itself.