Core Contributor News for Sprint: Sep 13th - Sep 26th, 2025
This sprint brought mostly positive experiences. 88% of participants rated their experience as good or great, while 12% reported a neutral experience.
What are we celebrating?
- We are making progress on adding TypeScript to Paragon. Thanks to Diana Villalvazo who has been opening a bunch of PRs to help with that effort and related improvements https://github.com/openedx/paragon/issues/3739
- Working on JSON ICU Unicode messages string validations. Almost there. Translated Arabic 100% in prep for Ulmo. Prep for the release cut and the Ulmo project creation.
- The Open edX Documentation’s main navigation has been updated! We’ve defined a better UX, and included a new section for “Core Contributors”. Now that the initial proposal has been completed, we’re working on the next steps. Thanks to John Swope, Sarina Canelake and Michelle Philbrick for their support.
Who needs help?
- Need contributors’ help on the openedx-translations tooling to ensure project sustainability. Need more testers and feature development for custom translations and external XBlock i18n.
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!
Stalled PRs: Some of the many PRs that need urgent attention:
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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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fix: make discovery service dependency optional for discussion notifications
Draft PRs: Require review and updates to move forward:
- feat: [FC-0044] Unit page - manage tags xblocks
- feat: User agreements API for generic agreement records
- [WIP] refactor: change lang selector logic
- fix: CardImageCup stretches image on Safari
- docs: migrate to scriv to manage changelog
- feat: improved accessibility of learning header
- FC-73 Add EXTERNAL_GRADER_SCORE_SUBMITTED signal to broadcast scoring events (Feature: Add event emission for external grader scores)
- FC-73 Implement receiver EXTERNAL_GRADER_SCORE_SUBMITTED signal to render score to student (Feature: Improve robust score rendering)
- feat: [FC-0047] Implement offline content generation:
- feat: [FC-0078] Dates page
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 meeting confirmed Salesforce as the central tool for product feedback, reviewed the Enterprise Capability Survey, and aligned on inactive or closing groups (e.g., Global RFP). Updates highlighted progress in the AI Extensions WG, partnership discussions (Turnitin), and the Distinguished Contributor Program with 60+ nominations and Oct 28 as the announcement date. Insights on AI in workforce training revealed contrasting adoption between large organizations and innovative startups, shaping next steps for market alignment. Latest meeting notes → 2025-10-01 Partnership development Meeting |
| Build-Test-Release (BTR) | Node 24 upgrade is progressing (35 issues opened, 24 closed, 11 pending) but remains a yellow risk, alongside delays in Notifications, Progress page fixes, and Roles & Permissions. Ulmo release prep continues with sandbox setup, testing sheets, and code cut scheduled for Oct 9, though some items (XQueue replacement, graded discussions) are deferred. The release planning group recommended considering a one-week delay to allow at-risk work to stabilize before making a final Go/No-Go decision. Latest meeting notes → 2025-10-03 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 session presented a Learning Materials Review feature proposal by Olha Turutova and explored new content types for Diagnostics and Learning Sequences by Santiago Suarez.Discussion highlighted opportunities to enhance course quality, learner support, and instructional insights through these proposed features. The meeting closed with updates on the Small Improvements, Big Impact initiative, focused on quick fixes delivering meaningful user benefits. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-23 Core Product Meeting Notes |
| Data | No current updates available. 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. Last 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 WG (Sept 25, 2025) agreed on using React Query key factories with reverse DNS naming for uniqueness and cache clarity. Updates included progress on MFE conversions (Gradebook, Account, Profile, Dashboard), tight deadlines for Ulmo, and work on Design Tokens integration. The group favored Vite over RSBuild, planned a new Tutor plugin for frontend base, and set action items for PRs on design tokens and the frontend-base plugin. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-25 Frontend Working Group Meeting Notes |
| Large Instances | The meeting shared updates on PHD stack migration, AI plugin development, and benchmarking Typesense vs. Meilisearch. Highlights included Moisés’ MariaDB Operator prototype for Kubernetes with HA and backup support, plus discussions on Cloudflare, Nginx/ACME, and Gateway API. Next steps: continue AI plugin work, evaluate MariaDB Operator for hosting, and track Kubernetes ingress/gateway changes. Latest meeting notes → Large Instances Meeting Notes 2025-09-16 |
| Learning Tools (LTI) | The feature is compatible with Olive but requires checks against the latest version, with dependencies on Django templates and the learning MFE, not Pearson apps. Configuration involves waffle flags, Tutor plugin setup, and PyLTI 1.3 for credentials, with domain/network considerations for tool–platform communication. Known issues include iframe cookie errors (launch in new window recommended) and outdated docs—decisions on grading, security, and auth still need documentation. Latest meeting notes → 2025-09-23 Meeting notes |
| Maintenance | The team discussed maintenance priorities, including repo consolidation (into edx-django-utilities), unclear ownership of catalog/course-discover, and gaps in the maintainer program with proposals for clearer criteria and review rotations. |
| A Bitergia Analytics demo is in progress, with next steps to enable filtering, improve PR linking, and publish a video walkthrough for the community. On upgrades, Node 24 work needs additional support, and Django 5.2 is nearly ready to flip by default, pending a few minor PRs. Last meeting notes → 2025-10-02 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. Last meeting notes →Agenda, Sep 18th, 2025 |
| Mobile | The group reviewed Ivan’s MVP for dynamic theming, enabling quick theming via web CSS. Edward Byun emphasized boosting mobile adoption, shifting focus to expanded input and leveraging the mobile format, while reorganizing work under a new wg-mobile repo. An open call for PR reviewers was made to avoid bottlenecks, as current review capacity relies heavily on Zeitlabs and Raccoon Gang. Latest meeting notes →Agenda, September 26th, 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. Last meeting notes → 2025-08-20 Translation WG Meeting |
| UX/UI | No current updates available. Last meeting notes → 2025-08-07 - 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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Sign up and cast your vote in the 2025 Open edX TOC Community Election!
Make your voice count — learn more and register here. -
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!