AnsibleByExample

Ansible Automation Platform 2.7 Changelog: A Field Guide

Beginner
2024-01-014By Luca Berton

Lesson 1 of 15 in Foundations

Ansible Foundations to Production — full curriculum
  1. 1. Introduction to Ansible and Automation
  2. 2. Installing and Configuring Ansible
  3. 3. Running Ad-Hoc Commands
  4. 4. Writing Your First Playbook
  5. 5. Understanding and Using Modules
  6. 6. Variables and Facts
  7. 7. Conditionals and Loops
  8. 8. Handlers and Idempotency
  9. 9. Structuring Projects with Roles
  10. 10. Inventory Management
  11. 11. Using Ansible Vault for Secrets
  12. 12. Debugging and Troubleshooting
  13. 13. Real-World Automation Examples
  14. 14. Final Project: Deploy a Web Server
  15. 15. Bonus - What's Next with Ansible?
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Red Hat Tech Day Netherlands 2026 (3 June 2026, Bunnik) doubled as the General Availability launch for Ansible Automation Platform 2.7. This is a field guide to what actually shipped, plus one playbook that exercises a few of the new pieces end to end.

Example: touching the new surfaces

---
- name: Exercise AAP 2.7 features from a control node
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    aap_gateway_host: "aap.example.com"
    ee_build_name: "custom-splunk-ee"

  tasks:
    - name: Sync the new Splunk collection into an Execution Environment definition
      ansible.builtin.copy:
        dest: "/tmp/{{ ee_build_name }}/execution-environment.yml"
        content: |
          version: 3
          images:
            base_image:
              name: registry.redhat.io/ansible-automation-platform-27/ee-minimal-rhel9
          dependencies:
            galaxy:
              collections:
                - name: splunk.es
                - name: community.hashi_vault
                - name: cisco.intersight
        mode: "0644"

    - name: Call the AAP 2.7 gateway API (all traffic now routes through the gateway)
      ansible.builtin.uri:
        url: "https://{{ aap_gateway_host }}/api/gateway/v1/service-clusters/"
        method: GET
        headers:
          Authorization: "Bearer {{ lookup('env', 'AAP_TOKEN') }}"
        validate_certs: true
        status_code: 200
      register: gateway_status

    - name: Report reachable AAP services
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "Gateway sees {{ gateway_status.json.count | default('unknown') }} registered services"

Run it against a real 2.7 control plane and it does two small but representative things: it drafts an Execution Environment definition pulling in one of the twelve new content collections announced at Tech Day (Splunk, HashiCorp Vault, Cisco Intersight, plus Microsoft MECM/SCOM, Google Cloud, and Azure round out the list), and it hits the gateway API directly — the only path into AAP 2.7 now that inter-component traffic is gateway-only.

What's actually new in 2.7

  • Automation Portal — a self-service front end for launching templates and a visual Execution Environment Builder, so EE definitions like the one above can be assembled in a UI instead of hand-written YAML.
  • Automation Intelligent Assistant (BYOK RAG) — bring-your-own-key retrieval-augmented generation baked into the platform for in-context automation help.
  • Hosted MCP Server (Tech Preview) — exposes 107 tools across 6 tool sets, letting MCP-compatible AI clients drive AAP operations directly.
  • Automation Orchestrator (preview, Q3 2026) — built on Temporal, for durable, long-running workflow orchestration beyond what job templates and workflows handle today.
  • 12 new content collections — Splunk, HashiCorp Vault, Cisco Intersight, Microsoft MECM, Microsoft SCOM, Google Cloud, Azure, and others extend day-2 coverage into monitoring, secrets, and hyperscaler estates.
  • Gateway-only architecture — every inter-component call now passes through the gateway; direct service-to-service calls are disallowed and this is enforced and regression-tested.
  • Platform stack bumps — PostgreSQL 16 and 17 support, Django 5.2 LTS, and a centralized OpenAPI spec for the whole platform.
  • ansible.platform collection, Phase 1 — configuration-as-code for the platform itself starts landing here.
  • UX/customer-requested fixes — bulk host delete, clearer auth mapping labels, repository sync date visible in the UI, a runtime feature-flags UI, workflow convergence improvements, and an Automation Dashboard now shipped as part of the core UI and installer (no separate add-on step).

Notes / Gotchas

  • The gateway-only architecture is not just a recommendation — direct service-to-service traffic is enforced and regression-tested, so any custom tooling that talked to a component API directly (bypassing the gateway) needs to be repointed.
  • The MCP Server and Automation Orchestrator are Tech Preview / preview respectively — don't build production dependencies on their APIs yet; treat the 107-tool, 6-tool-set MCP surface as subject to change before GA.
  • AAP 2.4 reaches end of life in June 2026. If you're still on 2.4, budget for either the 2.7 upgrade or Extended Update Support, which costs 50% extra for the first 12-month term and 75% extra for a second.
  • If you're on Red Hat's managed AAP offering, the rollout is staged: communications went out March 23 2026, Segment 1 upgraded on June 2, GA landed June 3, and Segment 2 follows on June 16 — check which segment your environment is in before assuming you're already on 2.7.

Treat 2.7 as an architecture release wearing a features release's clothing: the gateway-only enforcement and stack bumps (PostgreSQL 16/17, Django 5.2) matter more for stability planning than any single new collection.

References

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