AnsibleByExample

community.general 13.5.0 Released - Whats New and How to Update

Beginner
2026-10-055By Luca Berton

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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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Introduction

community.general is one of the largest collections shipped as part of the Ansible community package. It bundles modules, lookup plugins, callback plugins, and inventory plugins that do not have a dedicated collection of their own, covering areas such as GitLab/GitHub automation, LDAP, Consul, LVM, logrotate, and various callback plugins used for logging and observability. Version 13.5.0 has just been published on Galaxy, updating from 13.4.0.

This is a regular bugfix and feature release, not a major version bump, so no breaking changes are expected. The changelog lists a long set of minor changes across lookup plugins, callback plugins, and modules.

Whats New

Callback plugins - secrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+

Several callback plugins have been updated to redact sensitive output when running on ansible-core 2.22 and newer, taking advantage of the new secrets API:

  • elastic callback plugin - redact sensitive output on ansible-core 2.22+ (also received an internal refactor with no visible behavior changes).
  • jabber callback plugin - redact sensitive output on ansible-core 2.22+.
  • log_plays callback plugin - redact sensitive output on ansible-core 2.22+.
  • loganalytics callback plugin - redact sensitive output on ansible-core 2.22+.
  • loganalytics_ingestion callback plugin - refactored to use ansible-core 2.22's new secrets API to properly mark and mask secrets.
  • logstash callback plugin - redact sensitive output on ansible-core 2.22+.

Lookup plugins

  • consul_kv lookup plugin - no longer requires the py-consul Python library; it now uses ansible.module_utils.urls.open_url directly.
  • etcd3 lookup plugin - changed the type of the ca_cert, cert_cert, and cert_key options from string to path, since they specify paths to certificates/keys.
  • github_app_access_token lookup plugin - added client_id as an alias for app_id so the GitHub App's client ID can be specified without using a confusing option name.

Modules and module updates

  • cloudflare_dns - added diff mode support.
  • composer - composer's own warning about running as root/super user is now relayed as an Ansible warning.
  • github_secrets - added support for managing repository environment secrets.
  • github_secrets_info - added support for listing repository environment secrets.
  • gitlab_group - added a new unchanged value for the visibility parameter.
  • gitlab_issue - added all as a valid value for the state_filter parameter.
  • gitlab_project - added archived and unarchived values for state.
  • ldap_* modules - added support for specifying a SASL authorization identity (equivalent to the -X 'dn:...' flag).
  • logrotate - added diff mode support, showing before/after content of the configuration file when running with --diff; also refactored internally without changing functionality.
  • lvm_pv - added zero, metadatasize, dataalignment, and related options (see the upstream changelog for the full parameter list, as the entry was still being expanded at release time).

Summary table

AreaPlugin/ModuleChange
CallbackelasticSecrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+
CallbackjabberSecrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+
Callbacklog_playsSecrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+
CallbackloganalyticsSecrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+
Callbackloganalytics_ingestionRefactor to new secrets API
CallbacklogstashSecrets redaction on ansible-core 2.22+
Lookupconsul_kvDrops py-consul dependency
Lookupetcd3Cert options changed to path type
Lookupgithub_app_access_tokenclient_id alias added
Modulecloudflare_dnsDiff mode support
ModulecomposerRoot-user warning relayed to Ansible
Modulegithub_secrets / github_secrets_infoEnvironment secrets support
Modulegitlab_groupNew unchanged visibility value
Modulegitlab_issuestate_filter=all supported
Modulegitlab_projectarchived/unarchived state values
Moduleldap_*SASL authorization identity support
ModulelogrotateDiff mode support, internal refactor
Modulelvm_pvNew size/alignment options

How to Install and Verify

The collection can be installed or upgraded through ansible-galaxy:

# Install or upgrade community.general to the latest version
ansible-galaxy collection install community.general --upgrade

# Install the exact version 13.5.0
ansible-galaxy collection install community.general:==13.5.0

# Verify the installed version
ansible-galaxy collection list community.general

If the collection is managed through a requirements.yml file, update the pinned version accordingly:

collections:
  - name: community.general
    version: "13.5.0"

Then reinstall with:

ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml --force

Conclusion

community.general 13.5.0 is a routine bugfix and feature release that touches callback plugins, lookup plugins, and several GitLab/GitHub, LDAP, and system modules. There are no reported breaking changes, so upgrading from 13.4.0 should be safe for most playbooks. Users relying on the affected callback plugins on ansible-core 2.22+ will benefit from improved secrets redaction, while users of cloudflare_dns and logrotate gain diff mode support.

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