Release announcement : Ansible Community Package 8.3.0

[Anwesha Das]

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce the release of the Ansible 8.3.0 package!

Ansible 8.3.0 includes ansible-core 2.15.3 as well as a curated set of
Ansible collections that provide a vast number of modules and plugins.

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

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

`$ python3 -m pip install ansible==8.3.0 --user`

The sources for this release can be found here:

Release tarball:

https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3b/e5/ce68986eae98f0ef98120c4e77e3ef6420f4cec1bbdbfb778238d09e40aa/ansible-8.3.0.tar.gz

SHA256:

5e58001d7d6dc33e5d156ca343883b613ec988f69364b0a43f7124fe4b5be2f2

Wheel package:

https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/68/a7/101e0ae83e4932a0e9c6e5db2d3088e3273198a78677eccd4d432f06dfa3/ansible-8.3.0-py3-none-any.whl

SHA256:

f36b6f809743a4bca4c969178c7f4e0a960b2922c6c93ae12c08846e3acddc5a

Some important details
----------------------

Python wheels are now available for both Ansible 8 and ansible-core
2.15.3 resulting in significantly improved installation performance.

In addition, Ansible 8 no longer installs some unnecessary files from
the included Ansible collections such as tests or hidden files and
directories. This further improves installation performance and
reduces the size on disk. These files are still available in the
source tarball if needed.

Collections which have opted-in to being a part of the Ansible 8
unified changelog will have an entry on this page:
https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/blob/main/8/CHANGELOG-v8.rst

For collections which have not opted-in to the unified changelog, you
may find more information on
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections or the collection
source repository. For example, the community.crypto collection is
available at https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/crypto/index.html
and you can find a link to the source repository under the
"Repository(Sources)" button.

The changelog for ansible-core 2.15.3 installed by this release of
Ansible 8 can be found here:
https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/v2.15.2/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.15.rst


What's the schedule for new Ansible releases after 8.3.0?
---------------------------------------------------------

The next release roadmap can be found at
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/roadmap/ansible_roadmap_index.html

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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 2.15.3. 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