This document builds on the Airflow 3.0 release, to layout the next set of releases which build on the foundation of Airflow 3.0, starting with Airflow 3.1. This is very much a living document, which will be updated based on the community discussions and decisions, as well as development progress. Everything detailed here, especially scope and expected timelines are "statements of intent" to enable consistent visibility into the status and goals of the project.
The community discussions about Airflow 3 happen in the following places:
Following up on the dev call and the summary on the devlist, here is a list of the "swim lanes", including open issues and pull requests by area (last updated on Jan 5, 2026)
| Macro area | Swim lane | Github Labels | Leads | Open issues | Open PRs | Total | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Airflow |
| 224 | 172 | 396 | 59 | ||
| UI / API | area:UI, area:API, area:plugins | Brent Bovenzi / Pierre Jeambrun | 81 | 67 | 148 | ||
| Scheduler | area:scheduler | Ash | 24 | 13 | 37 | ||
| Task SDK | area:task-sdk, area:aip-72 | Kaxil, Amogh | 3 | 36 | 39 | ||
| Logging | area:logging | Ash | 21 | 5 | 26 | ||
| Auth | area:auth, provider:fab | Vincent | 12 | 12 | 24 | ||
| Serialization | area:serialization, DAG processing | Kaxil / Jed? | 6 | 27 | 33 | ||
| Helm Chart | helm-chart | Jed Cunningham, Jens Scheffler | 22 | 9 | 31 | 5 | |
| Dev Tools | dev-tools, ci, dev-env | Jarek Potiuk | 1 | 41 | 42 | 6 | |
| Airflow Ctl | airflow-ctl | Bugra Ozturk | 0 | 5 | 5 | 1 | |
| Translations | translations | Shahar Epstein | 0 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Providers |
| area:providers | 79 | 117 | 196 | 29 | |
| k8s | provider:cncf-kubernetes | Core Airflow - PMC | 23 | 18 | 41 | ||
| amazon | provider:amazon | AWS Team | 9 | 15 | 24 | ||
| provider:google | Google Team | 11 | 20 | 31 | |||
| Standard | provider:standard | Core Airflow - PMC | 4 | 8 | 12 |
Includes all swim lanes with greater than 10 total (issues + PRs)
Last updated: 24-Nov-2025
Following up from the devlist discussion, this is to deliberately spend a month (roughly mid-Oct to mid-Nov) to focus on the adoption feedback. There are many sources of input here, but absolutely include user feedback from the Airflow summit, Github issues and discussions, Slack feedback and questions, etc.
More details will be added here, but the delivery mechanism will be a combination of 3.1.x patch releases, doc changes, utility enhancements (such as to the ruff based upgrade util), and so on.
| Workstream | Deliverable | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Core Airflow updates | Airflow 3.1.1 release Unknown User (kaxilnaik)
| |
Airflow 3.1.2 release Unknown User (kaxilnaik) Unknown User (ephraimanierobi) | ||
Airflow 3.1.3 release Unknown User (ephraimanierobi) Unknown User (ash) | ||
Airflow 3.1.4 release Unknown User (ephraimanierobi) | ||
Airflow 3.1.5 release Unknown User (ephraimanierobi) | ||
Airflow 3.1.6 release Unknown User (ephraimanierobi) | ||
| UI improvements | UI improvements phased across patch releases Unknown User (bbovenzi) Unknown User (pierrejeambrun)
| Here are a collection of issues and PRs to start with:
|
| Task SDK issues | Task SDK issues in general (Amogh Unknown User (ash) ) Also includes metaDB issues such as adoption path for users using the metadatabase in Airflow 2.x for various reasons (Probably primarily documentation) | label:area:task-sdk |
| Auth issues | Authentication issues - could be be in Core Airflow or in the FAB provider integration Vincent BECK | label:area:auth |
| Data Assets | Generally shows up under Data aware scheduling (TP / Wei) | label:data-aware-scheduling |
| Logging issues | Currently several issues showing up because of log format changes, etc. Unknown User (ash) | label:area:logging |
This section is a draft to facilitate discussions, with a proposed deep focus starting in mid-Nov, with a release timeline of March 2026.
| Theme / Workstream | Improvement Proposals | Responsible | Status (Github project link) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expanded data awareness | AIP-76 Asset Partitions | Design and scoping in progress | |
| UI enhancements for Asset navigation | Scoping | ||
| Getting Started | Examples Refresh | In progress | |
| Misc | AIP-86 Deadline Alerts (Formerly SLA) | Sync callbacks (to be run via Executor) Github project | |
Contains archived elements from earlier 3.x work
| Theme / Workstream | Improvement Proposals | Responsible | Status (Github project link) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run anywhere in any language | AIP-72 Task Execution Interface aka Task SDK | Initial scoped items needed for independent version upgrades done. Test framework also in place for client / server interface testing. | |
| UI modernization | AIP-68 Extended Plugin Interface for React Views | Unknown User (bbovenzi) , Pierre Jeambrun. Unknown User (jscheffl) | Development done. |
| UI Internationalization | Shahar Epstein, Unknown User (bbovenzi) | Dev complete | |
| UI filters | Unknown User (bbovenzi) Pierre Jeambrun | Finish filters in the UI - key point raised in adoption. Significant progress with community help. Documented as Github issues | |
| Misc | AIP-86 Deadline Alerts (Formerly SLA) | Async callbacks run on Triggerer is dev complete. Sync callbacks (to be run via Executor) deferred to 3.2 Github project | |
| AIP-81 Enhanced Security in CLI via Integration of API | Released as airflowctl, independent from Core Airflow release | ||
| AI workloads | Dev complete, Includes API and UI | ||
Following up from 3.0 work on non-data-interval DAG runs https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/51711 Dev complete |
The expected high level milestones are shown below.
Date | Milestone |
| Started discussing Airflow 3.1 in dev calls both scope and timing |
May - Aug 2025 | Detailed scoping and development |
Week of | Cut release branch from main |
| Cut Beta Release of Airflow 3.1 |
Week of | Cut Release Candidate of Airflow 3.1 |
| Airflow 3.1.0 released |