Hello everyone! As we gear up for the Airflow 3 release, I’d like to kick off a discussion about the timing of removing the old FAB-based UI from Airflow core. We’ve been investing in the React-based UI for a while now, and I know that we have made tremendous progress on this.
The FAB UI removal is an exciting moment and one we’ve been working towards with AIP-38 (Modern UI) <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/AIRFLOW/AIP-38+Modern+Web+Application> and its sub-AIPs AIP-68 (plugin interface) <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/AIRFLOW/AIP-68+Extended+Plugin+Interface+for+React+Views>, AIP-79 (Remove FAB as core dependency) <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/AIRFLOW/AIP-79%3A+Remove+Flask+AppBuilder+as+Core+dependency>, and AIP-84 (UI REST API) <https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/AIRFLOW/AIP-84+UI+REST+API> - removing the FAB UI is a “when”, not an “if”, and I feel the when is now. Why now though? - We’re at a point where keeping the old UI around is more of a liability than a benefit - We have a clear path for the remaining feature gaps - ~2/3 of the way there based on the tracking issue <https://github.com/apache/airflow/issues/43712>, connections being the biggest remaining gap - Removing it unblocks a lot of cleanup and packaging work - If we want only the new UI for the beta period, now is the time to move We may not get 100% parity before release, and that’s okay. The reality is that supporting two UIs just isn’t sustainable because it splits our focus and adds maintenance overhead. Committing to a single UI helps us move forward faster and shows clear community buy-in. Assuming positive responses, Brent can open a PR doing the delete (that’s only fair haha)! Jed
