Release Announcement of Ansible Community Package 8.0.0a2 : for Pre Release versions

[Anwesha Das]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce the release of the Ansible 8.0.0a2 package!

Ansible 8.0.0a2 includes ansible-core 2.15.0rc1 as well as a curated set of
Ansible collections that provide a vast number of modules and plugins.

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

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

`$ python3 -m pip install ansible==8.0.0a2 --user`

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:
https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3b/81/3576eb61e81eba9319afa61be429ef5ac82e08586cb0dba24caed57c5ad1/ansible-8.0.0a2.tar.gz

SHA256:
66e25b753350aab48621c8a97659eb0bf176fc26fe25c7d9e52b291de6e903e4

Wheel package:
https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3e/dc/5148b6feee25f542cc8c3ecb305e573657fad7127b7da5d8c5e0a8842780/ansible-8.0.0a2-py3-none-any.whl

SHA256:
acf8eaa090c863212710ccfa4dffa4cf0828059c0f6ecf0f8f760003dba7222a


What's new in Ansible 8
-----------------------

This is an Alpha release of a major version.

Collections added to Ansible 8:
* dellemc.powerflex (version 1.6.0)
* dellemc.unity (version 1.6.0)
* grafana.grafana (version 2.0.0)
* microsoft.ad (version 1.0.0)
* servicenow.servicenow (version 1.0.6)

Collections removed from Ansible 8:
* dellemc.os10 (previously included version: 1.1.1)
* dellemc.os6 (previously included version: 1.0.7)
* dellemc.os9 (previously included version: 1.0.4)
* mellanox.onyx (previously included version: 1.0.0)

The full changelog can be found here:

https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/8/CHANGELOG-v8.rst


What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 8.0.0a2?
---------------------------------------------------------

View the Roadmap for Ansible project 8.0 here:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/COLLECTIONS_8.html

Subscribe to the Bullhorn for all future release dates, announcements,
and Ansible community contributor news at:

https://bit.ly/subscribe-bullhorn

You can find all past Bullhorn issues on the official wiki page:
https://github.com/ansible/community/wiki/News#the-bullhorn

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

A unified porting guide for collections that have opted-in is available here:
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/porting_guides/porting_guide_8.html

Getting collection updates from Ansible 8 with older releases of ansible-core
--------------------------------------

Ansible 8 includes ansible-core 2.15.x. Based on your requirements,
you can get collection updates as they ship in the Ansible "batteries
included" package while continuing to use older versions of
ansible-core.

An ansible-galaxy requirements file based on the collections from
Ansible 8 has been made available for this use case:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/8/galaxy-requirements.yaml

After you download the requirements file, the collections can be
installed by running this command:

"ansible-galaxy collection install -r galaxy-requirements.yaml"

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

Cheers,
Ansible Community Team