Ansible 6.0.0a1 (including ansible-core 2.13.0b0) available for testing

[David Moreau Simard]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce that the first alpha version of Ansible 6.0 is
now available for testing !

Ansible 6.0.0 will include ansible-core 2.13 as well as a curated set of
Ansible collections to provide a vast number of modules and plugins.

This is a major version update from Ansible 5.x which included
ansible-core 2.12 and there may be backwards incompatibilities in the
core playbook language.

Please see the porting guide (linked at the bottom) for details.

How to get it
-------------

This pre-release is available on PyPI and can be installed with pip:

```
$ pip install ansible==6.0.0a1 --user
```

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:
https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/a/ansible/ansible-6.0.0a1.tar.gz
SHA256: 539f4fad7cb3909d01304e3a012fb73d4f732ede672ff38305ae6577aaef7347

Wheel package: https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/py3/a/ansible/ansible-6.0.0a1-py3-none-any.whl
SHA256: aabcff94ab1e04730cedf3045eff007723dfb6d6299b9f7b7e643ec7ecfde1d8

What's new in Ansible 6.0.0a1
---------------------------

* Python wheels are now available for both Ansible 6 and ansible-core
2.13.x, resulting
in significantly improved installation performance.

* In addition, Ansible 6 will no longer install some unnecessary files
from the included Ansible
collections such as tests or hidden files & directories in order to
further improve installation
performance and reduce the size on disk. These files are still
available in the source tarball if necessary.

* The changelog for ansible-core 2.13 installed by this release of
ansible is available here:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.13/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.13.rst

* Collections which have opted into being a part of the Ansible-6
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/6/CHANGELOG-v6.rst

* For collections which have not opted into the unified changelog, you
may find more information on https://galaxy.ansible.com or their
source repository.
For example, the community.crypto collection would be found at
https://galaxy.ansible.com/community/crypto and you can find a link to
the source repository under the "Repo" button at the top right.

What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 6.0.0a1 ?
---------------------------------------------------------

* Maintenance releases of Ansible 5.x will occur approximately every
three weeks (Ansible 5.7.0, Ansible 5.8.0, etc) until the release of
Ansible 6.0.0. They will contain bugfixes and new features but no
backwards incompatibilities.

* There will be more alpha and beta releases leading up to the stable
release of ansible 6.0.0 expected on 2022-06-21. More information
can be found in the Ansible 6 roadmap:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_6.html

* Please note that the release of ansible-core 2.13 in May 2022 will
coincide with the end-of-life of ansible 2.9 and ansible-base 2.10:
https://groups.google.com/g/ansible-announce/c/kegIH5_okmg/

Porting Help
-------------

A unified porting guide for collections which have opted-in is available here:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_6.html

Getting collection updates from Ansible 6 with older releases of ansible-core
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ansible 6 includes ansible-core 2.13.x and users have expressed an interest
in getting collection updates as they ship in the Ansible "batteries
included" package
while keeping an older version of ansible-core based on their needs
and requirements.

An ansible-galaxy requirements file based on the collections from
Ansible 6 has been made available for this use case:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/6/galaxy-requirements.yaml

Once the requirements file has been downloaded, the collections can be
installed by running:
"ansible-galaxy collection install -r galaxy-requirements.yaml"

On behalf of the Ansible community, thank you and happy automating !