- module payload builder - module_utils imports in any nested block (eg, ``try``, ``if``) are treated as optional during module payload builds; this allows modules to implement runtime fallback behavior for module_utils that do not exist in older versions of Ansible.
Bugfixes
--------
- Fix adding unrelated candidate names to the plugin loader redirect list.
- Strategy - When building the task in the Strategy from the Worker, ensure it is properly marked as finalized and squashed. Addresses an issue with ``ansible_failed_task``. (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/57399)
- ansible-test - The ``--export`` option for ``ansible-test coverage`` is now limited to the ``combine`` command. It was previously available for reporting commands on which it had no effect.
- ansible-test - The ``ansible-test coverage combine`` option ``--export`` now exports relative paths. This avoids loss of coverage data when aggregating across systems with different absolute paths. Paths will be converted back to absolute when generating reports.
- ansible-test - ensure unit test paths for connection and inventory plugins are correctly identified for collections (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/73876).
- apt - fix policy_rc_d parameter throwing an exception when restoring original file (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/66211)