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.
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.
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 :ref:`ansible_roadmaps` for upcoming release details. Between major versions, we release a new minor version of the Ansible community package every three 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.
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.
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 If you are using a release of the Ansible community package that is no longer maintained, we strongly encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible to benefit from the latest features and security fixes.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 :ref:`ansible_roadmaps` 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.
You can refer to the :ref:`Ansible package porting guides<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 :ref:`intro_installation_guide` for details. You can download older Ansible releases from `<https://releases.ansible.com/ansible/>`_.
``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 :ref:`ansible_core_roadmaps` for upcoming release details.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 three 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 :ref:`contributing_maintained_collections`.
* 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 three 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 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 <https://github.com/ansible-community/antsibull-changelog/blob/main/docs/changelogs.rst>`_.
To add changelog fragments for new features and bug fixes in ``ansible-core``, see the :ref:`changelog examples and instructions<changelogs_how_to>` in the Community Guide.
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.
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.
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.
