Can’t speak for everyone, but I am looking for a statement more substantive from an AWX developer about… well, anything.
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I think we all know that. If you noticed, though, the latest AWX release is dated 2024, and without a release, AWX is just a github repository for the downstream Tower.
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Thanks for your reply, I’m aware of the Ansible/Red Hat ecosystem.
What I, and most, if not everyone here is looking for, is an answer or at least more information regarding what exactly is happening with Ansible AWX. The refactoring has been announced well over a year now, and it’s been (pretty much) silent since then.
With the FOSS-spirit in mind, I don’t think anyone here is looking for a hard date or anything you can expect or demand as a paying customer. It would however be nice, as a community member, to get an update on Ansible AWX, and check-in with the community once every now and then afterwards.
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I completely agree some communication from within would be welcome. However, as I indicated back in September, looking at the commits in the AWX devel branch is reassuring. Real, significant work continues to be committed to the AWX repo.
Let’s be careful not to misinterpret lack of communication as a sky-is-falling scenario. This thread feels very much like an echo chamber.
# Quick-n-dirty activity check
utoddl@tango:~/src/awx$ cat /tmp/foo
printf "Commits in September 2025: %3d\n" "$(git log --since=2025-09-01 --before=2025-10-01 --oneline | wc -l)"
printf "Commits in October 2025: %3d\n" "$(git log --since=2025-10-01 --before=2025-11-01 --oneline | wc -l)"
printf "Commits in November 2025: %3d\n" "$(git log --since=2025-11-01 --before=2025-12-01 --oneline | wc -l)"
printf "Commits in December 2025: %3d\n" "$(git log --since=2025-12-01 --before=2026-01-01 --oneline | wc -l)"
printf "Commits in January 2026: %3d\n" "$(git log --since=2026-01-01 --oneline | wc -l)"
utoddl@tango:~/src/awx$ . /tmp/foo
Commits in September 2025: 70
Commits in October 2025: 15
Commits in November 2025: 12
Commits in December 2025: 12
Commits in January 2026: 14
utoddl@tango:~/src/awx$ git remote -vv
origin git@github.com:ansible/awx.git (fetch)
origin git@github.com:ansible/awx.git (push)
(See https://github.com/ansible/awx/commits/devel/ for details.)
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I just started scrolling through the commits and landed on one commit message that (paraphrasing) said the code was generated by Claude AI.
I’m not a huge fan of AI, but setting that aside, how is code generated by Claude licensed? Can AI generated code be said to be free of end-user-agreements?
If awx is being refactored, “devel” commit counts are not likely to indicate the size or nature of any work in progress. I’d expect it to be in branches, or personnel branches, as the code is re-arranged. Using a single branch to handle refactoring and ongoing patches is by different developers is something I’ve done, and it gets pretty painful pretty fast.
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Like @utoddl I also agree that communication should be better handled in this case. But I also agree with his call for caution on interpreting the signs here. Sometimes no news are just… no news. But we only know for sure after we have updates. We are still missing on those.
That being said,
There’s been some discussions about this in Ansible AI Policy? - not sure whether the AWX team is following that or not (if we cannot get them to update the status of the refactor, I am not holding my breath they will stop and digress about how they are using LLMs).
Respectfully, that’s quite a jump to an inference based on too little information. The fact that the commits are in the main/devel branch does not mean they were not worked out in other branches before merging, so please hold your horses.
And whilst I cannot vouch for most of the developers in the “Ansible-sphere” individually (I can do that for some) nor for most of the specific teams, I am confident that some basic practices are in place, including working in branches.
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Is there another branch than “devel” where the planned refactoring is happening? I’d love to glance at that branch or branches to understand the planned changes.
I don’t see a guideline for branches or patch submissions that might help ensure modularity and ease merges during refactoring work. Would one be welcome?
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That would need to come from the AWX team. I have no visibility of that either.