Core Contributor News for Sprint: Jan 17th - Jan 30th, 2026

Working Groups Core Contributors
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Core Contributor News for Sprint: Jan 17th - Jan 30th, 2026

This sprint brought mostly positive experiences. 67% of participants rated their experience as good or great, while 33% reported a neutral experience or faced some challenges.

:tada: What are we celebrating?

@omar

  • We’re ramping up another engineer for Translations maintainace activities.

@magajh

  • I was able to dedicate time to testing and triaging a couple of issues for the Ulmo release. I will continue dedicating time to this.

:construction: 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

Draft PRs: Require review and updates to move forward:

Find a full list of PRs ready for review here, or focus on edx-platform PRs that need attention.

:memo: What are the Working Groups up to?

Working Group Latest Updates
BizDev The BizDev WG meeting will focus on aligning priorities and restructuring the group for 2026, consolidating focus areas into fewer, clearer pillars with defined ownership. Key discussions include defining an effective execution model, improving the market–product feedback loop, and clarifying data-sharing boundaries and AI positioning. The session will conclude by agreeing on concrete next steps and expectations for Q1 2026 to ensure outcomes, not just updates. Last meeting notes → 2026-04-02 Partnership development Meeting
Build-Test-Release (BTR) The group discussed how to handle the retrospective, noting the lack of written feedback and proposing a dedicated 30-minute meeting to align on learnings and immediate actions. They also flagged the need for a deeper async discussion on the release model before deciding on tentative Ulmo point-release dates. Finally, roles for the next release were addressed, with a follow-up planned to confirm who will continue, switch roles, or offer additional support. Last meeting notes → 2026-09-02 BTR Meeting Minutes
Governance WG No current updates available. Last meeting notes → June-Nov 2025 - Activity - Governance WG
Core Product A 50-minute session focused on the Competency Alignment UI, led by Phil Ball from Unicon. The discussion explored how competencies can be better represented and aligned within the user interface. The goal was to improve clarity and usability for mapping learning content to defined competencies. Last meeting notes → 2026-01-27 Core Product Meeting Notes
Data A brief update announced the official release of Aspects v3, now compatible with the Open edX Ulmo release, along with pointers to upgrade instructions. This was followed by an overview of early product requirements work connecting Learner Pathways with Aspects, outlining future analytics and insights support planned for a post-Verawood release. Last meeting notes → 2026-02-04 Meeting notes
Deprecation The DEPR working group discussed improving the project board by adding an “Abandoned” status, setting default 6-month review dates, and defining clearer criteria for closing, rejecting, or reviving tickets, including a new help-wanted label. Ongoing cleanup includes resolving lingering DEPR scope questions (e.g., legacy waffle flags), handling repo ownership transfers from 2U, and rewriting the Legacy Libraries DEPR with a full migration plan (Verawood as the last supported release). Progress updates also covered old Studio/LMS UI removal, tracking and reducing feature toggles, and dedicating time to systematically review long-stalled draft tickets. Latest meeting notes → DEPR Meetings Notes (2026)
Documentation Tutor documentation remains fragmented and hard to navigate, especially for plugins, onboarding, and debugging. The group proposed creating a Tutor FAQ, improving plugin docs, and reorganizing content around Operator vs Developer needs. Next steps focus on gathering common pain points and engaging Tutor maintainers to improve and align documentation. Last meeting notes → 2026-02-04 Docs WG
Educators No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2025-11-10 Educators
Frontend The Frontend WG aligned on reorganizing the board to prioritize bugs and blocked work, with bi-weekly reviews and milestone-based tracking. A key decision was to merge the Learner Dashboard’s full React Query migration before landing the Programs Dashboard conversion to reduce complexity and performance risk. Frontend Base is progressing as a separate, production-ready branch for Virwood, with strong momentum boosted by renewed 2U resourcing. Latest meeting notes → 2026-01-29 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes
Large Instances The meeting highlighted real-world scaling lessons from running Aspects at record traffic, showing it can handle ~7M events/day when backed by SSD-grade disks, fire-and-forget inserts, and a dedicated Celery queue. OpenCraft shared progress on modernizing Kubernetes ops, including Traefik adoption, Argo-based workflows, and deprecating legacy tooling. A major milestone was the launch of production PR sandboxes on the new Picasso + Harmony + Drydock stack, enabling faster, more reliable deployments. Last meeting notes → Large Instances Meeting Notes 2026-02-03
Learning Tools (LTI) No current updates available. Latest meeting notes → 2025-11-25 Meeting notes
Maintenance The meeting focused on maintainer capacity, repo health, and upcoming platform changes ahead of Verawood, including the rename to openedx-platform and ensuring docs and builds are updated accordingly. Key discussions covered centralizing Renovate configs, auditing maintainership, Python API restructuring, and clarifying the React 18 support window. Action items were assigned to follow up on maintainer outreach, docs build status, React upgrade decisions, and pending PRs. Latest meeting notes → 2026-02-05 Meeting notes
Marketing No current updates available. Last meeting notes →Agenda, Oct 14th, 2025
Mobile The discussion centered on the Open edX Universal App, highlighting strong engagement with Ivan’s overview video and the need for more community feedback. Key concerns included addressing long-tail issues, especially adding a clear way for users to report inappropriate or removable content, with Moodle referenced as a potential model to study. Next steps include Ivan drafting a proposal for the Universal App, supported by Edward, while continuing to align the work with FY26 adoption and mobile-first goals. Latest meeting notes →Agenda, 2026-01-30
Technical Oversight Committee No current updates available. Last meeting notes → TOC Meeting Notes - 2025-11-12
Translation No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2025-11-19 Translation WG Meeting
Design The session focused on a design share-out and feedback round for Unicon’s Competency Alignment UI proposal. Phillip Ball presented updated designs in Figma, showcasing a new approach to the Alignment UI and proposed updates to taxonomies. The discussion gathered early feedback to refine the design direction before next iterations. Last meeting notes → 2026-02-05 - Design Working Group Meeting

:date: What events are coming up?

  • We are excited to announce that Western Governors University (WGU) will be hosting the Open edX Conference 2026. May 19 – 22, 2026 • Salt Lake City, Utah

    • Register now and join the Open edX community in reimagining what’s possible in learning!

  • Join a working group meeting using the community calendar.

:rocket: What are we working on?

:handshake: 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”).

:speech_balloon: Anything to add?

Share your thoughts in Slack (openedx.slack.com) or the comments below!