Core Contributor News for Sprint: Jul 31st - Aug 25th, 2026
This sprint brought mostly positive experiences. 60% of participants rated their experience as good or great, while 40% reported a neutral experience or faced some challenges.
What are we celebrating?
- PR cleaning and merging
- Got document/PDF conversion working for the PDF block. Just need to get it all the way through its reviewing paces now.
Who needs help?
We need help with converting Paragon components to TypeScript: Tracking issue: Convert components to TypeScript · Issue #3739 · openedx/paragon · GitHub (This is something Claude can largely automate, based on all the examples we now have so it’s fairly easy work! I’m happy to be the reviewer or I can do it if someone volunteers to review.)
If you are interested in the upcoming ADRs for storing static assets in openedx_core instead of MongoDB, please follow the ADR PR announcements on #wg-core-architecture.
If you are interested in better support for Typesense (including for library/studio search), and better integration of search in general, please check out docs: ADR 0001, one search library across Typesense and Meilisearch by blarghmatey · Pull Request #1 · openedx/openedx-search · GitHub
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. These are just some of the many PRs that require immediate review and action. In addition, there are several Draft PRs that need attention to move forward. Please take a moment to review and update them as needed so they don’t remain blocked. Thank you!
Stuck waiting for review
- feat!: remove support for local CodeJail
- feat: update gitignore file
- feat: Requesting to add Course Passing Grade in the Admin Portal Learner Progress Report
- fix: include user-defined tokens as app token source
- fix: update secondary text color tokens
- chore: pin GitHub Actions workflows to full commit SHAs
- refactor: slash-and-burn Poll BuiltIn XBlock
- refactor: slash-and-burn Annotatable BuiltIn XBlock
- refactor: remove built-in LTI XBlock implementation (slash-n-burn #37819)
- refactor: remove built-in HTML XBlock implementation (slash-n-burn #37819)
Draft PRs: Require review and updates to move forward:
- feat: allow hiding question count on the course outline page
- fix: update MathJax CDN from 2.7.5 to 2.7.9 (CVE-2023-39663)
- fix: update MathJax CDN from 2.7.5 to 2.7.9 (CVE-2023-39663)
- perf(user_api): implement centralized caching for user preferences
- perf(grades): optimize database queries for large-scale grade recalcu…
- feat!: rm user db_constraint in CourseEnrollment
- perf: speed up the CCX grade report and fix its CSV output
- feat: support added to export content libraries to git (#38026)
- perf: bulk-prefetch grades in ProblemGradeReport and bound its per-learner caches
- fix: don’t scroll the page when toggling anchor-driven widgets
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 | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-04-02 Partnership development Meeting |
| Build-Test-Release (BTR) | The BTR meeting focused on confirming the official Willow release delay to early January and determining the next steps for communication and testing timelines. The team also reviewed Farhaan’s proposed hybrid point-release cadence, including feedback from the community and Security WG. E2E testing infrastructure is progressing, with initial tests merged, while the team continues coordinating test prioritization between must-pass manual tests and those targeted for automation.Latest meeting notes → 2026-09-07 BTR Meeting Minutes |
| Governance WG | The Governance WG wrapped up the Spring Cleaning hackathon with 47 PRs reviewed, 6 merged, 15 closed, and 26 remaining open on the contributions board. The OSPR automation effort was cancelled after maintainers confirmed that the main bottlenecks are unresponsive PR authors and limited reviewers, rather than a lack of automation. The group is now focusing on revisiting the Notifications Admin proposal with a smaller MVP that OpenCraft could upstream, while also exploring open-source alternatives for internal communication and collaboration tools. Last meeting notes → July 6 to Sep 10, 2026 — Open edX Governance WG |
| Core Product | The group reviewed the Product Proposals Database and discussed the future cadence of the Learner Engagement WG. Due to team changes and shifting priorities, the group plans to move to a quarterly sync for now. The main focus has been breaking the broader gamification proposal into smaller, incremental initiatives, starting with improved profiles and avatars, which is currently in development. Last meeting notes → 2026-08-24 Core Product Meeting Notes |
| Data | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-04-08 Meeting notes |
| Deprecation | The Named Release Planning WG is currently tracking three key topics for Willow: whether Mongo forums will be deprecated, the current status of the Library v1 deprecation, and the React 18 upgrade, including whether it is currently waiting on the remaining legacy frontend deprecations. Last meeting notes → DEPR Meetings Notes (2026) |
| Documentation | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-02-04 Docs WG |
| Educators | No current updates available. Latest meeting notes → 2026-04-27 Educators |
| Frontend | The Frontend Working Group focused on OEP-70, which is currently in its review period and seeking community feedback. The group also discussed frontend-base conversions and the use of Paragon within a workspace. No specific decisions or action items were recorded. Latest meeting notes → 2026-09-10 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes |
| Large Instances | Latest meeting notes → Large Instances Meeting Notes 2026-09-02 |
| Maintenance | The meeting focused on Python modernization and release/versioning strategies across Open edX. Several modernization PRs are now ready for review, including updates to uv, pyproject.toml, Python semantic release, and trusted publishing. The group also discussed whether openedx-platform should adopt semantic versioning—or potentially calendar versioning—to help frontend applications identify backend capabilities and compatibility. For frontend releases, the team reviewed the proposed branching and publishing strategy and considered CalVer as a way to make version age clearer to operators, while noting that breaking changes would still need to be communicated through release notes. Last meeting notes → 2026-08-06 Meeting notes |
| Marketing | The August 19 agenda focused on AEO planning, award submissions, and market development activities for the remainder of 2026. The team will review and update the OptimizationTracker, refine the award submission strategy, and coordinate participation in key events including UNESCO Digital Learning Week, EDUCAUSE, the THE Arab Universities Summit, and the Global Digital Health Forum. The agenda also includes sponsorship planning for CBExchange and OEB Global, along with evaluating potential sponsorship opportunities at FICCI Higher Education Summit, Bengaluru Tech Summit, and DIDAC India. Last meeting notes → Agenda, Aug 19th, 2026 |
| Mobile | No current updates available. Latest meeting notes → Agenda, 2026-01-30 |
| Technical Oversight Committee | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → TOC Meeting Notes - 2026-07-08 |
| Translation | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-03-18 Translation WG Meeting |
| Design | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2026-03-18 - Design Working Group Meeting |
What events are coming up?
- 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!Please read How To Get Help (click the link in the preview pane to the right) before asking a question, thanks, then delete this text!