Azure Automation drops four old Python and PowerShell runbook runtimes

A quiet monitored night — nothing new surfaced from the feeds — so tonight adds one confirmed retirement from the backlog: Azure Automation ends support for the Python 2.7, Python 3.8, PowerShell 7.1, and PowerShell 7.2 runbook runtimes on 30 September 2026. Runbooks keep running afterward but stop getting security updates, bug fixes, or support, so anything left on those versions needs re-targeting to a supported runtime.

A genuinely quiet monitored night: 56 sources fetched clean, nothing new or changed in the feeds, and no fresh discovery chatter. Every entry with a sunset date inside 30 days was re-checked against its primary source first — eleven entries, all unchanged. So tonight is a single, well-verified addition from the backlog rather than a padded list.

Azure Automation retires Python 2.7, Python 3.8, and PowerShell 7.1/7.2 runbook runtimes. In an Azure Updates retirement notice, Microsoft says that from 1 October 2026 — after a 30 September 2026 retirement — those four runtime versions will no longer be supported by Azure Automation. It’s a support cut-off, not an immediate shutoff: Microsoft is explicit that affected runbooks “may continue to run” but “will not receive security updates, bug fixes, or official support.” In practice that turns any runbook still pinned to Python 2.7 / 3.8 or PowerShell 7.1 / 7.2 into unmaintained code running on a schedule inside your tenant. The fix is to inventory your Automation accounts, re-target affected runbooks to a supported Python or PowerShell runtime, test, and cut over — one runbook at a time, since the old runtimes keep executing until the date. (Verified against the Microsoft release-communications API backing the notice; affected product is Azure Automation, id 567556.)

Still counting down

Relay — 15 August, the app shuts down.
Google Content API for Shopping — 18 August, end-of-life.
OpenAI Assistants API — 26 August, removed from the API.
Convictional — 27 August, platform access ends.
OCI DevOps OL7 build runners — 28 August.
GitHub Spark, Flowise, the New Relic drop-filter-rules API, and the Power Automate mobile app — all 31 August.

Further out: OpenSSL 3.0 (7 September), the GitHub Copilot MAI-Code-1-Flash deprecation (10 September), the Microsoft Sentinel SAP agent retirement (14 September), the new Azure Automation runtime cut-off (30 September), the OpenAI Sora 2 video API (24 September), and the Cloudflare Workers KV legacy API (15 October). The full board, with countdowns, is on the calendar.