Dependency requirements

Python dependencies

Collections with external Python dependencies must include them in either:

• A requirements.txt file.
• A meta/ee-requirements.txt file.

These files are used by ansible-builder when creating execution environments. See Ansible Builder - Collection-level dependencies for further details.

Python dependencies used for collection development should not be included in the files above. Collection development dependencies should be defined in a test-requirements.txt file.

No ansible or ansible-core packages

The requirements.txt file must not list ansible or ansible-core as dependencies.

Ansible Automation Platform provides ansible-core through execution environments. Modules and plugins have access to the ansible Python namespace at runtime, including ansible.module_utils.basic, without declaring it as a dependency.

The ansible package is a community distribution that bundles 80+ community collections and is not supported in certified collections.

References to ansible-core in pyproject.toml for collection development, such as this example, are acceptable because they do not affect package installation.

Version specifiers

Dependency versions in requirements.txt must not use upper bounds or pinned versions. Use >= or leave the version unspecified:

Allowed	Not allowed
requests	requests==2.31.0
requests>=2.28.0	requests<=2.31.0

Pinned or capped versions can cause conflicts when multiple collections in an execution environment depend on different versions of the same package.

An exception applies when both the collection and its dependency are provided by the same vendor.

Binary dependencies

Collections with binary dependencies must include a bindep.txt file. This file is used by ansible-builder when creating execution environments. See Ansible Builder - System-level Dependencies for further details.

Collection dependencies

Collection dependencies declared in galaxy.yml must be certified collections available on Red Hat Ansible Automation Hub. Community collections are not permitted as dependencies in certified collections. Only validated collections can declare community collections as dependencies.