Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform — automation orchestrator 2026.8

Release notes

What is automation orchestrator?

Learn about the product, core workflow concepts, and how agentic steps work within a workflow

What is the workflow designer?

Introduces the workflow designer tool, explains the UI layout, and helps users orient themselves in the interface

Create your first workflow

Build an initial workflow using a guided tutorial, including planning considerations and prerequisites

Choose a deployment model

Compare available deployment topologies to select the right architecture

Understand the Ansible Automation Platform-integrated topology

Review the deployment model where automation orchestrator runs integrated with Ansible Automation Platform

Understand the independent topology

Understand an independent topology, where you deploy automation orchestrator on its own dedicated OpenShift cluster

Understand the air-gapped topology

Review the deployment model for disconnected or air-gapped environments

Install and manage Automation Orchestrator

Install, configure, and manage the full lifecycle, including release channels, system requirements, environment prep, aapctl and OpenShift operator installation, custom resource configuration, GitOps manifest generation, OpenTelemetry setup, upgrade, and

Perform day-2 operations

Manage post-install operations such as scaling components, rotating credential encryption keys, configuring internal TLS with cert-manager, backing up and restoring, and using aapctl command references

Start workflows with triggers

Configure workflow triggers including manual triggers, webhooks, Event-Driven Ansible triggers, cron schedules, visual schedules, and trigger identification for workflow runs

Add task agents to workflows

Use AI task agents in workflow steps by adding agent steps, reviewing agent reasoning and tool calls, leveraging common patterns, and applying best practices

Add human oversight to workflows

Configure approval gates in workflows by adding approval steps, responding to approvals from the Approvals page or execution viewer, and approving or rejecting multiple requests

Add action steps to workflows

Configure script and REST API steps by understanding each step type and adding them to workflows

Add Ansible Automation Platform to workflows

Run Ansible Automation Platform automation from workflows by adding job template and workflow template steps, configuring inputs and outputs, using job output downstream, and running across multiple environments

Control workflow execution

Manage flow control by adding wait, conditional, switch, converge, for-each loop, and while loop steps, using loop context variables, leveraging common loop patterns, and connecting steps to pass data

Test workflows with real or mock data

Test individual workflow steps by identifying supported step types, testing with real data, configuring mock data, and reviewing mock data examples for control flow steps

Save, publish, and manage workflow versions

Manage the versioning lifecycle by publishing and unpublishing workflows, deleting workflows, viewing version history, rolling back, resolving version conflicts, and looking up version-specific API endpoints

Validate workflows

Check workflows before publishing by identifying errors, saving with validation issues, validating without saving, and referencing common validation errors

Share and promote workflows

Export and import workflows across environments and teams by understanding the process, exporting workflows, importing from the Workflows page or Workflow Builder, and troubleshooting imports

Use case: Automated incident remediation

Walk through an end-to-end example that covers the automated web service remediation pattern and builds the workflow step by step

Integrate with the REST API

Access Automation Orchestrator programmatically via its REST API

Secure and govern the platform

Configure platform governance by setting up policy-based access control, organizing users and resources into groups and projects, and understanding resource deletion behavior

Authenticate users and systems

Configure authentication by choosing a method, managing session and token behavior, provisioning users, linking identity providers, managing group memberships, administering the built-in account, adding identity providers, and managing sessions

Configure integrations

Connect external systems by setting up LLM providers, Ansible Automation Platform, and MCP server integrations, testing connections, monitoring health status, referencing field definitions, and troubleshooting issues

Manage built-in workflows and background execution

Administer system workflows by viewing built-in workflows, configuring background worker scaling, and referencing background execution settings

Control access with policies and roles

Configure authorization by using predefined roles, creating custom roles, defining policies, assigning and removing roles, understanding permission inheritance, viewing effective permissions, and referencing the authorization API

Manage credentials to secure your automation workflows

Set up credential management by choosing credential types, creating and managing credentials, attaching them to workflow nodes, and configuring secure storage and encryption

Enable programmatic API access with service accounts

Create and manage service accounts by assigning RBAC roles, delegating access across projects, authenticating with credentials, rotating secrets, disabling accounts and credentials, deleting accounts, identifying unused accounts, and referencing the API

Monitor audit events

Configure audit logging by understanding concepts and event delivery, setting data retention, configuring OTLP forwarding, and referencing events for authorization, authentication, and service accounts

Access operational logs

View and configure application logs by understanding operational logs, configuring log levels, and referencing log data formats

Collect and view logs in-cluster

Set up OpenShift logging integration by deploying the logging stack, configuring log emission, and viewing events in the OpenShift console

Monitor workflow runs

Track workflow execution by identifying execution statuses and monitoring active and completed runs

Understand collected telemetry data

Review analytics and telemetry by understanding observability, verifying privacy protections, configuring runtime settings, and inspecting collected data

Monitor platform health with Prometheus metrics

Configure metrics and monitoring by understanding Prometheus metrics, sending to external systems, meeting OpenTelemetry URL requirements, integrating with OpenShift monitoring, troubleshooting collection, and referencing available metrics

Manage global application runtime settings

Configure runtime settings by understanding available settings, modifying values, resetting individual or category-level settings, and referencing UI and API options

Troubleshoot with logs and diagnostics

Diagnose issues by collecting diagnostic information for support and resolving problems with installation, credentials, authorization, and authentication

Troubleshoot workflow runs

Diagnose failed workflow runs and resolve common workflow failures

Node type catalog

Look up all available node types, their settings, and common output fields

Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform — automation orchestrator 2026.8 PDF Reference

Download the full documentation set as a PDF

Ansible Automation Platform 2.7 documentation

Ansible on Clouds documentation