Core Contributor News for Sprint: Aug 16th - Aug 29th, 2025
This sprint brought mostly positive experiences. 78% of participants rated their experience as good or great, while 22% reported a neutral experience or faced some challenges.
What are we celebrating?
- I am working on the pointer tag issue. I’ve made a good progress so far. The only thing that is left is to look for the Aside XBlocks case whether they get parsed correctly or not with my existing change.
- Added JSON validation for the translation messages. Fully translated Arabic for both Teak and main project – a first since many years. Written up a detailed guide for Arabic translators.
- Teak.2 is out
- We have started the screening process for Distinguished Contributors Program and I am very excited with the amount of candidates we received. I am grateful for the people who nominates and provide us additional information about nominees.
Who needs help?
- It will be nice to get as many information about nominees as possible, everyone please check your email - maybe you have a message about the nomination you made and we need help with it.
What Pull Requests (PRs) need review?
As a CC, check for PRs that are stuck and need attention. Don’t have write access? No problem! You can still help by reviewing to move things forward. Ping Axim if there are issues merging after you review.
Below is a list of stalled PRs that need urgent attention.
Find a full list of PRs ready for review here, or focus on edx-platform PRs that need attention.
What are the Working Groups up to?
| Working Group | Latest Updates |
|---|---|
| BizDev | The BizDev WG focused on strengthening the BizDev ↔ Product feedback loop and consolidating client/lost deal insights into product workflows. A proposal was discussed to use Salesforce comments + AI-assisted summaries for safer, consistent trend sharing instead of exposing details in public channels. Key updates also covered the Enterprise Capability Survey, alignment with other working groups (AI, RFPs, Market Alignment), and ongoing partnership and market expansion activities. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-10 Partnership development Meeting |
| Build-Test-Release (BTR) | The last BTR WG meeting reviewed retrospective items, the Teak.2 release ceremony (21/08), and preparations for the upcoming Ulmo release. Next steps focus on filling open roles (Testing Coordinator, Security Patcher, Product Liaison) and aligning with the review board to move forward. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-01 BTR Meeting Minutes |
| Contributor Coordination | The working group decided to adopt an asynchronous-first model, retiring monthly meetings in favor of ad-hoc calls when necessary. Last meeting notes → 2025-05-13 CC Working Group Meeting Notes |
| Core Product | The group will discuss extensions and improvements to the notifications feature for Verawood and future releases. Potential ideas are already listed in the threads on future and potential improvements in Notifications. aamir ayub will lead the conversation, inviting contributions on priorities and implementation paths. Latest meeting notes → 2025-08-26 Core Product Meeting Notes |
| Data | The session will include a User Groups walkthrough by Maria Grimaldi, covering the Confluence page and open pull requests for openedx-user-groups. It will also feature an update from Ty Hob on Aspects upcoming releases, including the next bug fix release, future work toward a 3.0 release, simplification of the default architecture, replacing event sinks where possible, performance improvements for Ralph, and version bumps for ClickHouse, Superset, Ralph, and Vector. Last meeting notes → 2025-08-20 Meeting notes |
| Deprecation | On Sept 4, 2025, the team reviewed old TODOs and the DEPR project board. |
| On Aug 21, 2025, the Frontend-base Release Strategy Summit was announced. The summit is scheduled for Aug 27, 2025, focusing on the release approach for frontend-base. Latest meeting notes → DEPR Meetings Notes (2025) | |
| Documentation | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2025-04-17 Docs WG |
| Educators | No current updates available. |
| Frontend | The frontend-base project is progressing as an alpha NPM package, alongside converted MFEs (authn and learner-dashboard), deployable via Tutor. The goal is to complete remaining conversions by the Ulmo release, with four developers working nearly full-time. This work introduces several breaking changes, including deprecations in plugin slots, runtime config API, and specific Learner Dashboard/Authn features. Two release strategies are under discussion: 1. New client approach – maintain conversions separately from legacy MFEs, enabling greenfield development but requiring dual maintenance. 2. Merge to master ASAP – integrate once feasible, minimizing porting overhead but needing strong documentation, Tutor support, and careful handling of breaking changes. Last meeting notes → 2025-08-27 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes |
| Large Instances | The Large Instances meeting discussed AI extensibility, search backend options, and standardizing the catalog API. Key infra topics included MySQL UTF8MB4 migration fixes, new Harmony-based hosting models, and the PHD stack for deployments. Frontend challenges with MFEs and build performance were noted, with optimism around Rust tools, Paragon, and growing community expertise. Last meeting notes → Large Instances Meeting Notes 2025-08-19 |
| Learning Tools (LTI) | The LTI WG session explored the ltistore plugin, focusing on setup, configuration, and testing to improve LTI consumer functionality. Findings highlighted the need for clearer documentation, simpler credential handling, and proper filter connections for external configs. Open questions remain on OAuth2/OIDC links, configuration storage (DB vs. external), tenancy, roles, and content mobility, guiding next steps for LTI improvements. Latest meeting notes → 2025-08-26 Meeting notes |
| Maintenance | The team reviewed upgrade progress: Node 24 (tickets created, PR #37166 pending merge) and Django 5.2 (on-track, awaiting final edx-platform PR) ahead of the Ulmo release cut (Oct 9). Operator notes and planning for the Ulmo release were shared, along with updates on the Repo Health Dashboard initiative led by Usama Sadiq. Next steps include reviewing the maintainers program, key metrics, and gaps, plus a demo/discussion on adopting the Repo Health Dashboard for the Open edX org. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-04 Meeting notes |
| Marketing | The upcoming Open edX Meetup will cover UniDigital and Sandbox updates, with registration open for “Transformative Enhancements and Hands-On Exploration”. An external consultant was engaged to refine the go-to-market strategy, and potential 2025 conference participations were discussed (Bett, LT Paris, eLearning Africa, HR Tech Europe). The BizDev sub-group shared its weekly update, including an OKR strategy review on GitHub in coordination with the Marketing WG. Latest meeting notes →Agenda, Sep 18th, 2025 |
| Mobile | The team reviewed progress updates: the Progress page is in AC testing, and Course Content Tabs are in code review, with an open call for more PR reviewers. Discussions on multi-tenancy/learning academies are ongoing (single/multi-tenancy app, config per tenant, dynamic theming, microsites, push notifications). Next steps: share a draft OEP (instead of ADR) for community review, define product requirements (Edward Byun), and coordinate among RG, Zeitlabs, and Schema. Latest meeting notes →Agenda, August 29th, 2025 |
| Technical Oversight Committee | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → TOC Meeting Notes - 2025-05-14 |
| Translation | Language performance declined after the transition from edx-platform to openedx-translations, with machine translations now active for all languages except Portuguese (Portugal). Updates were shared by Eden Huthmacher, with details available in the Translation Working Group resources. A GitHub board review was also highlighted for ongoing tracking and coordination. Latest meeting notes → 2025-08-20 Translation WG Meeting |
| UX/UI | The session included quick updates on current UX/UI efforts, including a centralized database of design projects (Sam Daitzman) and a proposal to reintroduce the search bar in the Learner Dashboard (Chelsea Rathbun). Edward Byun shared progress on a Platform UX issue tracker, while Santiago Suarez proposed a multi-question problem editor to enhance authoring flexibility. Last meeting notes → 2025-06-12 - UX/UI Working Group Meeting |
What events are coming up?
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Educause 2025: EDUCAUSE Annual Conference 2025 - 4 Providers confirmed (Edly, Intela, Aulasneo, and DRC).
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Join a working group meeting using the community calendar.
What are we working on?
- Our community is working on exciting projects! Visit our Open edX Roadmap and Release Planning Spreadsheet to find out what’s happening.
Want to participate in Core Contributor Governance?
- Participate to the work of the Contributor Coordination Working Group. The group works asynchronously using the working group tasks board, and we’d love your input there. You can review and comment on existing threads there, or post your own topic to discuss with the group by creating your own ticket on the board (“+ Add item” in “New topics and issues to discuss”).
Anything to add?
Share your thoughts in Slack (openedx.slack.com) or the comments below!