Ansible community package collections requirements

Overview

This document describes the requirements for maintainers of Ansible community collections included in the Ansible community package. All inclusion candidates and already included collections must meet the criteria marked with MUST in this document.

You can also find these requirements on the Collection inclusion criteria checklist.

Every rejected candidate will get feedback from the Ansible Community Steering Committee based on a decision made in a dedicated community topic.

Feedback and communications

Any feedback and help is very welcome. Please create a community topic or bring your questions to the community meeting.

Keeping informed

To track changes that affect collections:

Communication and Working Groups

Forum overview

The Forum is our asynchronous default communication platform.

In the context of organizing communication around Ansible collections, you need to understand the following notions:

  • Tags: together with categories, tags are the main feature used in the Forum to organize conversations around specific topics. Most Ansible projects have one or more associated tags. For Ansible collections the main tag name is usually the technology the collection targets: examples include kubernetes for kubernetes.core, windows for ansible.windows, and postgresql for community.postgresql.

  • Forum groups: groups allow you to organize users, manage permissions, have a working group page that provides related information, automatically subscribe members to tags, mention or message the whole group, and more. An example collection working group is the PostgreSQL Ansible Collection Working Group.

See the Working Groups - things you can ask for! forum topic for more details.

Communication requirements

Your collection:

  • MUST have a corresponding public tag in the Forum or reuse at least one of the existing tags.

    • Multiple collections can share a tag if they cover similar topics; for example, amazon.aws and community.aws could both use the tag aws.

    • In addition, the collection can request a forum group. If the collection requests or already has a group:

      • All related tags MUST be associated with the group. Everyone who joins the group is automatically subscribed to the tags.

      • The group MUST be public and free to join by any forum user.

    • Use the Requesting a tag/forum group topic to request a tag and a forum group.

  • MUST have a communication section in its README with references to the Forum similar to the collection_template README.md.

    • The section MUST contain at least a reference to the Get Help forum category, potentially including a tag in the URL.

    • The section MUST contain information on which tags participants should use for collection-related topics.

    • If the collection has a forum group, the section MUST contain a reference to the group.

    • Descriptions of the references MUST welcome readers to join and participate.

    • Maintainers of the collection SHOULD be subscribed to all associated tags and be members of all associated groups.

  • SHOULD have the Discussions GitHub feature disabled in favor of the Forum.

Collection infrastructure

The following guidelines describe the required infrastructure for your collection:

  • MUST have a publicly available issue tracker that does not require a paid level of service to create an account and to create and view issues.

  • MUST have the issue feature enabled in its repository and accept issue reports from anyone.

  • MUST have a Code of Conduct (CoC) compatible with the Community Code of Conduct.

  • MUST be published to Ansible Galaxy with version 1.0.0 or later.

  • MUST contain only objects that follow the Licensing rules.

  • SHOULD NOT contain any large objects (binaries) comparatively to the current Galaxy tarball size limit of 20 MB, For example, do not include package installers for testing purposes.

  • SHOULD NOT contain any unnecessary files such as temporary files.

Python Compatibility

In addition to the Python requirements specified in this section, collections SHOULD adhere to the tips at ansible-and-python-3.

Python Requirements

Python requirements for a collection vary between controller environment and other environment.

Controller environment

  • Collections MUST support all eligible controller Python versions in the controller environment, unless required libraries do not support these Python versions. The Steering Committee can grant other exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

    • controller environment: the plugins/modules always run in the same environment (Python interpreter, venv, host, and so on) as ansible-core itself.

    • eligible controller Python version: a Python version that is supported on the controller side by at least one ansible-core version that the collection supports. The eligible versions can be determined from the ansible-core support matrix and from the requires_ansible value in meta/runtime.yml in the collection.

  • The collection MUST document all eligible controller Python versions that are not supported in the controller environment. See Python documentation requirements for details.

Other environment

  • Collections MUST support all eligible controller Python versions in the other environment, unless required libraries do not support these Python versions. The Steering Committee can grant other exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

    • other environment: the plugins/modules run not in a controller environment.

    • eligible target Python version: a Python version that is supported on the target side by at least one ansible-core version that the collection supports. The eligible versions can be determined from the ansible-core support matrix and from the requires_ansible value in meta/runtime.yml in the collection.

  • The collection MUST document all eligible target Python versions that are not supported in the other environment. See Python documentation requirements for details.

Dropping Python versions support

Because dropping support for a Python version for an existing module/plugin is a breaking change, the collection:

  • SHOULD announce it under the deprecated features section in its changelog in previous versions before the support is dropped.

  • MUST release a major version that actually drops the support.

Python documentation requirements

  • If your collection does not support all eligible controller/target Python versions, you MUST document which versions it supports in the README.

  • If most of your collection supports the same Python versions as ansible-core, but some modules and plugins do not, you MUST include the supported Python versions in the documentation for those modules and plugins.

Standards for developing module and plugin utilities

  • module_utils and plugin_utils can be marked for only internal use in the collection, but they MUST document this and MUST use a leading underscore for file names.

    • If you change a utility in module_utils from public to private, you are making a breaking change. If you do this, you must release a new major version of your collection.

  • Below are some recommendations for module_utils documentation:

    • No docstring: everything we recommend for other-environment is supported.

    • The docstring 'Python versions supported: same as for controller-environment': everything we recommend for controller-environment is supported.

    • The docstring with specific versions otherwise: 'Python versions supported: '.

Repository structure requirements

galaxy.yml

  • The tags field MUST be set.

  • Collection dependencies MUST meet a set of rules. See the section on Collection Dependencies for details.

  • If you plan to split up your collection, the new collection MUST be approved for inclusion before the smaller collections replace the larger in Ansible.

  • If you plan to add other collections as dependencies, they MUST run through the formal application process.

README.md

Your collection repository MUST have a README.md in the root of the collection, see collection_template/README.md for an example.

meta/runtime.yml

Example: meta/runtime.yml

  • The meta/runtime.yml MUST define the minimum version of ansible-core which this collection works with using the requires_ansible field. For example, if the collection works with ansible-core 2.16 and later, set requires_ansible: '>=2.16' in the meta/runtime.yml file.

meta/execution-environment.yml

If a collection has controller-side Python package and/or system package requirements, to allow easy execution environment building, they SHOULD be listed in corresponding files under the meta directory, specified in meta/execution-environment.yml, and verified.

See the Collection-level dependencies guide for more information and collection_template/meta directory content as an example.

Modules & Plugins

  • Collections MUST only use the directories specified below in the plugins/ directory and only for the purposes listed:

    Those recognized by ansible-core:

    doc_fragments, modules, module_utils, terminal, and those listed in Working with plugins. This list can be verified by looking at the last element of the package argument of each *_loader in https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/plugins/loader.py#L1126

    plugin_utils:

    For shared code which is only used controller-side, not in modules.

    sub_plugins:

    For other plugins that are managed by plugins inside of collections instead of ansible-core. We use a subfolder so there aren’t conflicts when ansible-core adds new plugin types.

    The core team (which maintains ansible-core) has committed not to use these directories for anything which would conflict with the uses specified here.

Other directories

  • Collections MUST not use files outside meta/, plugins/, roles/ and playbooks/ in any plugin, role, or playbook that can be called by FQCN, used from other collections, or used from user playbooks and roles.

    • A collection MUST work if every file or directory is deleted from the installed collection except those four directories and their contents.

    • Internal plugins, roles and playbooks (artifacts used only in testing, or only to release the collection, or only for some other internal purpose and not used externally) are exempt from this rule and may rely on files in other directories.

Documentation requirements

Collections:

  • MUST use links and formatting macros.

  • SHOULD have contributor guidelines in the CONTRIBUTING.md or README.md file.

All modules and plugins:

  • MUST include a DOCUMENTATION block.

  • MUST include an EXAMPLES block (except where not relevant for the plugin type).

  • MUST use FQCNs when referring to modules, plugins and documentation fragments inside and outside the collection including ansible.builtin. for ansible-core.

  • MUST include a RETURN block for modules and other plugins that return data.

  • MUST include the version_added field when adding new content to an existing collection for entities that support it, for example, for modules, plugins, options, return values, and attributes.

    • You do not have to add version_added when creating a new collection before its first release.

    • The version_added field for objects in a collection MUST refer to the version of the collection in which the options were added – NOT the version of Ansible or ansible-core.

      • If, for some reason, you need to specify version numbers of Ansible or another collection, you MUST also provide version_added_collection: collection_name. We strongly recommend to NOT do this.

Contributor Workflow

Changelogs

  • Collections MUST include a changelog in the correct format.

    1. You can generate or check changelogs using antsibull-changelog (documentation), which provides consistency for changelogs across collections included in the ansible package.

Versioning and deprecation

  • Collections MUST adhere to the Semantic versioning conventions:

    • MUST have this information in its README.md file in the collection root directory.

    • SHOULD have this information in its contributor and maintainer documentation.

    • MUST have changelog entries under correct categories (Major changes, Minor changes, Bugfixes, and so on).

  • Collections MUST preserve backward compatibility:

    • To preserve backward compatibility for users, every Ansible minor version series (x.Y.z) will keep the major version of a collection constant.

      • For example, if Ansible 3.0.0 includes community.general 2.2.0, then each 3.Y.z (3.1.z, 3.2.z, and so on) release will include the latest community.general 2.y.z release available at build time.

      • Ansible 3.y.z will never include a community.general 3.y.z release, even if it is available.

      • Major collection version changes will be included in the next Ansible major release (4.0.0 in this example).

      • Therefore, ensure that the current major release of your collection included in 3.0.0 receives at least bugfixes as long as new 3.Y.Z releases are produced.

    • Since new minor releases are included, you can include new features, modules and plugins. You MUST make sure that you DO NOT break backward compatibility! This means in particular:

      • You can fix bugs in patch releases, but you MUST NOT add new features or deprecate things.

      • You can add new features and deprecate things in minor releases but you MUST NOT remove things or change the behavior of existing features.

      • You can only remove things or make breaking changes in major releases.

      • See semantic versioning for more information.

    • We recommend that you ensure if a deprecation is added in a collection version that is included in Ansible 3.y.z, the removal itself will only happen in a collection version included in Ansible 5.0.0 or later, but not in a collection version included in Ansible 4.0.0.

  • The collection SHOULD make its policy of releasing and deprecation available to contributors and users in some way, for example, in its README or pinned issue. See the announcement in community.general as an example.

Naming

Collection naming

When choosing a name for a brand new namespace:

  • Take into consideration the Namespace limitations which list requirements for namespaces in Galaxy.

  • If the namespace does not exist yet and is not occupied by anybody else, submit a namespace request to have it created for you.

Naming recommendations:

  • For collections under the ansible-collections GitHub organization the repository SHOULD be named NAMESPACE.COLLECTION.

  • For collections created for working with a particular entity, they should contain the entity name, for example community.mysql.

  • For corporate maintained collections, the repository can be named COMPANY_NAME.PRODUCT_NAME, for example ibm.db2.

  • Avoid FQCN/repository names:

    • which are unnecessarily long: try to make it compact but clear.

    • contain the same words / collocations in NAMESPACE and COLLECTION parts, for example my_system.my_system.

Note

If you plan to get your collection certified on Red Hat Automation Hub, please consult with Red Hat Partner Engineering through ansiblepartners@redhat.com to ensure collection naming compatibility between the community collection on Galaxy and the certified collection.

Module naming

  • Modules that only gather and return information MUST be named <something>_info.

  • Modules that gather and return ansible_facts MUST be named <something>_facts and MUST NOT return anything but facts.

For more information, refer to the Developing modules guidelines.

Collection licensing requirements

These guidelines are the policy for inclusion in the Ansible package and are in addition to any licensing and legal concerns that may otherwise affect your code.

Note

The guidelines below are more restrictive than strictly necessary. We will try to add a larger list of acceptable licenses once we have approval from Red Hat Legal.

There are several types of content in collections which licensing has to address in different ways.

  • The content that MUST be licensed with a free software license that is compatible with the GPL-3.0-or-later:

    • The modules/ directory content.

    • The module_utils/ directory content: ansible-core typically uses the BSD-2-clause license to allow third-party modules to use the module_utils in cases when those third-party modules have licenses that are incompatible with the GPLv3. Please consider this use case when licensing your own module_utils.

    • Code outside plugins/: if it DOES NOT import code licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later it may be licensed under another license compatible with GPL-3.0-or-later.

    • Non-code content.

    • To be allowed, the license MUST be considered open source and compatible with GPL-3.0-or-later on both:

  • The content that MUST be licensed with the GPL-3.0-or-later:

    • All other code in the plugins/ directory except code under the modules/ and module_utils/ directories (see above): these plugins are run inside of the Ansible controller process which is licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later and often must import code from the controller. For these reasons, GPL-3.0-or-later MUST be used.

    • Code outside plugins/: if it imports any other code that is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. Note that this applies in particular to unit tests that often import code from ansible-core, plugins/, module_utils/, or modules/, and such code is often licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later.

Contributor License Agreements

Collections MUST NOT require community contributors to sign any type of contributor license agreement (CLA) other than the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) or similar agreements that only require confirming the provenance of contributions. This requirement seeks to preserve the community’s ownership over its contributions, prevent unwelcome licensing changes that can occur when one entity owns the copyrights for an entire project, and lower barriers to contribution.

Repository management

  • Every collection MUST have a public Git repository.

  • Releases of the collection MUST be tagged in its repository.

    • The git utility with the tag argument MUST be used to tag the releases.

    • The tag name MUST exactly match the Galaxy version number.

    • Tag names MAY have a v prefix.

    • Tag names MUST have a consistent format from release to release.

  • Collection artifacts released to Galaxy MUST be built from the sources that are tagged in the collection’s Git repository as that release.

    • Any changes made during the build process MUST be clearly documented so the collection artifact can be reproduced.

Branch name and configuration

Note

This subsection is only for repositories under ansible-collections! Other collection repositories can also follow these guidelines, but do not have to.

  • All new repositories MUST have main as the default branch.

  • Pull Requests settings MUST disallow merge commits.

  • The following branch protection rules that MUST be enabled for all release branches:

    • Require linear history

    • Do not allow bypassing the above settings

CI Testing

Note

You can copy the free-to-use GitHub action workflow file from the collection_template repository to the .github/workflows directory in your collection to set up testing through GitHub actions. The workflow covers all the requirements below.

Add new ansible-core versions in a timely manner and consider dropping support and testing against its EOL versions and versions your collection does not support.

If your collection repository is under the ansible-collections GitHub organization, please keep in mind that the number of testing jobs is limited and shared across all the collections in the organization. Therefore, focusing on good test coverage of your collection, please avoid testing against unnecessary entities such as ansible-core EOL versions that your collection does not support.

To receive important announcements that can affect the collections (for example, testing), collection maintainers SHOULD:

  • Subscribe to the news-for-maintainers repository.

  • Join the Collection Maintainers & Contributors forum group.

  • You MUST run the ansible-test sanity command from the latest stable ansible-base/ansible-core branch.

    • Collections MUST run an equivalent of the ansible-test sanity --docker command.

      • If they do not use --docker, they must make sure that all tests run, in particular the compile and import tests (which should run for all supported Python versions).

      • Collections can choose to skip certain Python versions that they explicitly do not support; this needs to be documented in README.md and in every module and plugin (hint: use a docs fragment). However, we strongly recommend you follow the Ansible Python Compatibility section for more details.

  • You SHOULD additionally run ansible-test sanity from the ansible/ansible devel branch so that you find out about new linting requirements earlier.

  • The sanity tests MUST pass.

    • You SHOULD avoid adding entries to the test/sanity/ignore*.txt files to get your tests to pass but it is allowed except in cases listed below.

    • You MUST NOT ignore the following validations. They MUST be fixed and removed from the files before approval:

      • validate-modules:doc-choices-do-not-match-spec

      • validate-modules:doc-default-does-not-match-spec

      • validate-modules:doc-missing-type

      • validate-modules:doc-required-mismatch

      • validate-modules:mutually_exclusive-unknown

      • validate-modules:no-log-needed (use no_log=False in the argument spec to flag false positives!)

      • validate-modules:nonexistent-parameter-documented

      • validate-modules:parameter-list-no-elements

      • validate-modules:parameter-type-not-in-doc

    • The following validations MUST not be ignored except in specific circumstances:

      • validate-modules:undocumented-parameter: this MUST only be ignored in one of these two cases:

        1. A dangerous module parameter has been deprecated or removed, and code is present to inform the user that they should not use this specific parameter anymore or that it stopped working intentionally.

        2. Module parameters are only used to pass in data from an accompanying action plugin.

    • All entries in ignore-*.txt files MUST have a justification in a comment in the files for each entry. For example plugins/modules/docker_container.py use-argspec-type-path # uses colon-separated paths, can't use type=path.

  • You MUST run CI against each of the “major versions” (2.14, 2.16, 2.17, etc) of ansible-core that the collection supports. (Usually the HEAD of the stable-xxx branches.)

  • All CI tests MUST run against every pull request and SHOULD pass before merge.

  • At least sanity tests MUST run against a commit that releases the collection; if they do not pass, the collection will NOT be released.

    • If the collection has integration/unit tests, they SHOULD run too; if they do not pass, the errors SHOULD be analyzed to decide whether they should block the release or not.

  • All CI tests MUST run regularly (nightly, or at least once per week) to ensure that repositories without regular commits are tested against the latest version of ansible-test from each ansible-core version tested. The results from the regular CI runs MUST be checked regularly.

All of the above can be achieved by using the GitHub Action template.

To learn how to add tests to your collection, see:

When moving modules between collections

See Migrating content to a different collection for complete details.

Generally, we do not object to moving content between collections or moving content from collections included in Ansible to collections outside the Ansible package, as long as semantic versioning is not violated. More precisely, replacing content with redirects is only a minor change if the destination collection is the dependency of the original collection. (See Collection Dependencies for more information about adding new dependencies to collections included in Ansible.)

For the community “catch all” collections, we have slightly different rules. We allow to move content out of community.general and community.network to other collections outside of Ansible under the following conditions:

  1. The new collection is appropriately licensed and follows the Contributor License Agreements policy.

  2. None of the contributors who contributed to the content in the last 6 months object in a four-week period after the plan to deprecate the module has been announced.

  3. There is a deprecation period of at least 6 months during which deprecation warnings are shown. The deprecation notice must mention that the content is moved to a collection outside the Ansible community package and that users need to install that collection separately.

  4. If community members or contributors bring up good reasons in these 6 months to cancel the migration, the Steering Committee will discuss these and vote on them before the content is removed.

Redirects are only added if full backwards compatibility can be ensured. If they are not used, tombstoning has to be used, and the tombstone message needs to explicitly mention the new collection and that the content in the new collection is not fully backwards compatible.

Development conventions

All modules in your collection:

  • MUST satisfy all the requirements listed in the Conventions, tips, and pitfalls.

  • MUST satisfy the concept of idempotency: if a module repeatedly runs with the same set of inputs, it will not make any changes on the system.

  • MUST NOT query information using special state option values like get, list, query, or info - create new _info or _facts modules instead (for more information, refer to the Developing modules guidelines).

  • check_mode MUST be supported by all *_info and *_facts modules (for more information, refer to the Development conventions).

Collection Dependencies

Notation: if foo.bar has a dependency on baz.bam, we say that baz.bam is the collection depended on, and foo.bar is the dependent collection.

  • The collection MUST NOT depend on collections not included in the ansible package.

  • Collection dependencies MUST be published on Galaxy.

  • Collection dependencies MUST have a lower bound on the version which is at least 1.0.0.

    • This means that all collection dependencies have to specify lower bounds on the versions, and these lower bounds should be stable releases, and not versions of the form 0.x.y.

    • When creating new collections where collection dependencies are also under development, you need to watch out since Galaxy checks whether dependencies exist in the required versions:

      1. Assume that foo.bar depends on foo.baz.

      2. First release foo.baz as 1.0.0.

      3. Then modify foo.bar’s galaxy.yml to specify '>=1.0.0' for foo.baz.

      4. Finally release foo.bar as 1.0.0.

  • The dependencies between collections included in Ansible MUST be valid. If a dependency is violated, the involved collections MUST be pinned so that all dependencies are valid again. This means that the version numbers from the previous release are kept or only partially incremented so that the resulting set of versions has no invalid dependencies.

  • If a collection has a too strict dependency for a longer time, and forces another collection depended on to be held back, that collection will be removed from the next major Ansible release. What “longer time” means depends on when the next Ansible major release happens. If a dependent collection prevents a new major version of a collection it depends on to be included in the next major Ansible release, the dependent collection will be removed from that major release to avoid blocking the collection being depended on.

  • We strongly suggest that collections also test against the main branches of their dependencies to ensure that incompatibilities with future releases of these are detected as early as possible and can be resolved in time to avoid such problems. Collections depending on other collections must understand that they bear the risk of being removed when they do not ensure compatibility with the latest releases of their dependencies.

  • Collections included in Ansible MUST NOT depend on other collections except if they satisfy one of the following cases:

    1. They have a loose dependency on one (or more) major versions of other collections included in Ansible. For example, ansible.netcommon: >=1.0.0, or ansible.netcommon: >=2.0.0, <3.0.0. In case a collection depends on releases of a new major version outside of this version range that will be included in the next major Ansible release, the dependent collection will be removed from the next major Ansible release. The cut-off date for this is feature freeze.

    2. They are explicitly being allowed to do so by the Steering Committee.

Examples

  1. community.foo 1.2.0 has a dependency on community.bar >= 1.0.0, < 1.3.0.

    • Now community.bar creates a new release 1.3.0. When community.foo does not create a new release with a relaxed dependency, we have to include community.bar 1.2.x in the next Ansible release despite 1.3.0 being available.

    • If community.foo does not relax its dependency on community.bar for some time, community.foo will be removed from the next Ansible major release.

    • Unfortunately community.bar has to stay at 1.2.x until either community.foo is removed (in the next major release), or loosens its requirements so that newer community.bar 1.3.z releases can be included.

  2. community.foonetwork depends on ansible.netcommon >= 2.0.0, <3.0.0.

    • ansible.netcommon 4.0.0 is released during this major Ansible release cycle.

    • community.foonetwork either releases a new version before feature freeze of the next major Ansible release that allows depending on all ansible.netcommon 4.x.y releases, or it will be removed from the next major Ansible release.

Other requirements

See also

Ansible collection creator path

A consistent overview of the Ansible collection creator journey