Changelog

Version 0.1.0-alpha.7

Sep 22, 2026

A managed host can no longer set its own connection settings through the facts a module returns. Until this release, a fact module’s ansible_facts reached the host’s variables unfiltered, so a host could change the address, user and ssh arguments of its own next task, including -oProxyCommand, which runs a command on the controller. It could also pick the Python interpreter its next module ran under, switch the connection to local to move its next task onto the controller, and move ansible_remote_tmp so that a planted agent ran as root on the next become task. Volant now strips the names ansible-core’s clean_facts() strips, plus ansible_remote_tmp, which ansible-core does not use this way, and prints the same warning. (#181)

Run ansible-core’s Python modules on managed hosts. The controller builds one content-addressed zip of the modules a run needs and their module_utils, and sends it to each host once. A Python server in the agent loads it once and forks a child per task, so running a module costs tens of milliseconds rather than starting a new interpreter for each one. The host needs a Python interpreter but not ansible-core; the controller needs ansible-core. Modules the reference runs through an action plugin, such as copy, template, service and package, are still refused before the first connection. (#158, #159, #163, #166, #171)
Gather facts with ansible-core’s own setup module when a play asks for them. Gathered facts are data from the host and are never rendered as templates. (#173)
Run assert, fail and pause on the controller. (#179)

A play that does not write gather_facts: false now gathers facts, so it needs ansible-core on the controller and is refused before the first connection without it. (#173)
Gathered facts now rank above the inventory and below the play’s, role’s and task’s own variables, as in ansible-core. A playbook that sets a variable with the same name as a gathered fact now reads its own value. (#181)
An escalated connection is kept for the whole play instead of being rebuilt at every task. On a thirty-five task playbook against one host this took the run from 872 ms to 226 ms per task. A run can now hold two connections per host, so a controller limited to 1024 open files reaches that limit at about 169 escalating hosts. (#178)

ansible_facts[...] uses the same keys as ansible-core, without an ansible_ prefix, and a fact a module returns without the prefix keeps its name. (#181)
A command skipped because of creates: or removes: is reported as ok, as in ansible-core, rather than as skipped. (#181)
A registered result carries changed and failed the way ansible-core’s does, and a result such as rc: "2" counts as a failure as it does there. (#181)
The timeout: keyword applies to tasks that run on the controller. (#179)