community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory uses invliade names for varaibles with ansible 2.19

[anxjok]

SUMMARY

AWX uses community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory to fetch an inventory from venter. With Ansible 12 aka 2.19 we get the following deprecation warnings for some variables `

[DEPRECATION WARNING]: Accepting inventory variable with invalid name 'config.guestId'. This feature will be removed from ansible-core version 2.23.
Origin: <unknown>
config.guestId
Variable names must be strings starting with a letter or underscore character, and contain only letters, numbers and underscores.

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible [core 2.19.3]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/root/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /root/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/local/bin/ansible
  python version = 3.11.13 (main, Aug 21 2025, 00:00:00) [GCC 11.5.0 20240719 (Red Hat 11.5.0-11)] (/usr/bin/python3.11)
  jinja version = 3.1.6
  pyyaml version = 6.0.3 (with libyaml v0.2.5)

COLLECTION VERSION

# /usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ansible_collections
Collection       Version
---------------- -------
community.vmware 5.9.0

# /usr/share/ansible/collections/ansible_collections
Collection       Version
---------------- -------
community.vmware 6.0.0

CONFIGURATION

CONFIG_FILE() = None

GALAXY_SERVERS:

OS / ENVIRONMENT

Run withan an Ansible Execution Environment

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. use community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory with ansible 12.
   used this config

compose:
  ansible_connection: "ssh"
  ansible_host: guest.ipAddress
  ansible_shell_type: "powershell"
enable_backward_compatability: false
filters:
- config.guestId is match('win*')
hostnames:
- config.name
leading_separator: false
plugin: vmware_vm_inventory
properties:
- config.name
- config.guestId
- guest.ipAddress
with_tags: true

EXPECTED RESULTS

Use varaible names that are not invalide

ACTUAL RESULTS

ansible-inventory [core 2.19.3]
  config file = None
  configured module search path = ['/root/.ansible/plugins/modules', '/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/ansible
  ansible collection location = /root/.ansible/collections:/usr/share/ansible/collections
  executable location = /usr/local/bin/ansible-inventory
  python version = 3.11.13 (main, Aug 21 2025, 00:00:00) [GCC 11.5.0 20240719 (Red Hat 11.5.0-11)] (/usr/bin/python3.11)
  jinja version = 3.1.6
  pyyaml version = 6.0.3 (with libyaml v0.2.5)
No config file found; using defaults
setting up inventory plugins
Loading collection ansible.builtin from 
redirecting (type: inventory) ansible.builtin.vmware_vm_inventory to community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory
Loading collection community.vmware from /usr/share/ansible/collections/ansible_collections/community/vmware
[WARNING]: Deprecation warnings can be disabled by setting `deprecation_warnings=False` in ansible.cfg.
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: community.vmware.vmware_vm_inventory has been deprecated. Use vmware.vmware.vms instead. This feature will be removed from collection 'community.vmware' version 7.0.0.
Loading collection vmware.vmware from /usr/share/ansible/collections/ansible_collections/vmware/vmware
Using inventory plugin 'ansible_collections.community.vmware.plugins.inventory.vmware_vm_inventory' to process inventory source '/runner/inventory/vmware_vm_inventory.yml'
[DEPRECATION WARNING]: Accepting inventory variable with invalid name 'config.guestId'. This feature will be removed from ansible-core version 2.23.
Origin: <unknown>
config.guestId
Variable names must be strings starting with a letter or underscore character, and contain only letters, numbers and underscores.

[mariolenz]

vmware_vm_inventory is deprecated. Since you "only" get a warning but the plugin still works, I'm not sure if we'll find the time to work on this. Plugins and modules that are not deprecated have a higher priority. And there's a lot to do about them. Sorry ☹️

BTW you should see a deprecation warning about this, too. It's been deprecated since 5.4.0. And you're running at least 5.9.0 (or later?).

[anxjok]

Thanks for the quick reply, yes we also see a deprecation warning about that.
It's completely understandable, and thanks for your time working on the module.