Core Contributor News for Sprint: Jan 31st - Feb 13th, 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.
What are we celebrating?
- Started working on the second leg of the ai-extensions project.
- Refactoring Transifex projects. Going slow but we’ll finish soon for Ulmo and Teak.
- Very productive discussion on the release process.
Who needs help?
- I need to know if using submissions was a good idea for this use case: docs: add ADR for AI chat history storage by MaferMazu · Pull Request #135 · openedx/openedx-ai-extensions · 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
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fix: answer range format validation and error message in Numerical input
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feat: add asset existence check before replacing static URLs
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build: update release workflow to create PR with release changes
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.
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 | Between late November 2025 and mid-February 2026, the Governance Working Group (now async-first) advanced three key initiatives: the Notifications Admin MVP (updated per TOC feedback and now in community review), the Open edX Handbook migration (structure finalized and GitHub board created for content transfer), and the Communication Tools evaluation (recommendations shared for forum discussion). The Notifications proposal aims to improve how the community gathers feedback, while the Handbook project is transitioning from planning into structured migration and iterative content development. The communication tools review sparked active debate about replacing proprietary tools and, more broadly, encouraged a shift toward better use of existing platforms—especially prioritizing forum discussions for long-term visibility and transparency. Latest meeting notes → Dec 2025 to Feb 12 2026 — Open edX Governance WG |
| Core Product | The session focused on Learning Pathways and a brief overview of the Modular Content Delivery platform strategy presented by Jenna Makowski. The discussion explored how modularizing content can enable more flexible sequencing, structured learning journeys, and scalable program design, while aligning the platform with pathway-driven experiences that better support learner progression and institutional adaptability. Latest meeting notes → 2026-02-10 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. Last 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 Working Group reviewed progress on React Query migrations and frontend-base improvements, including a high-priority login redirect fix and performance optimizations using useReducer. A major discussion centered on improving developer experience around source aliases, transpilation, and how to test PRs locally after publishing compiled packages. The group agreed to move forward with compiling TypeScript before publishing and to explore better CI-based solutions for distributing PR artifacts without disrupting the main release flow. Latest meeting notes → 2026-02-12 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 group discussed recruiting more maintainers, advancing the openedx-platform rename, and moving toward pyproject.toml as a step toward Ruff and uv adoption. They also raised concerns about Verawood performance testing and the unclear React 18 support window, with potential need to upgrade to React 19. Key follow-ups include updating docs builds, centralizing Renovate config, and merging the tutor-mfe Catalog MFE PR. 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 |
What events are coming up?
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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!
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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!