Robot Framework 7.0 is a new major release with enhanced listener interface, native VAR syntax for creating variables, support for mixing embedded and normal arguments with library keywords, JSON result format and various other enhancements and bug fixes. Robot Framework 7.0 requires Python 3.8 or newer.
Robot Framework 7.0 rc 1 was released on Thursday December 21, 2023, with all features and fixes planned to be included in the final release. It is targeted for anyone interested to see how they can use the interesting new features and how backwards incompatible changes and deprecations possibly affect their tests, tasks, tools and libraries. The target date for the final release is Monday January 8, 2024.
For more details about everything that’s new, see the full release notes. Have fun and happy holidays! 
1 Like
If you are interested to learn more about the new features in Robot Framework 7.0, join the RoboCon conference in February, 2024. I will go through the key features briefly in the onsite conference in Helsinki and more thoroughly in the online edition.
The conference has also dozens of other great talks, workshops and a lot of possibilities to meet other community members as well as developers of various tools and libraries in the ecosystem. All profits from the conference will be used for future Robot Framework development.
The second release candidate has been released. It fixes reported regressions in the first rc, enhances the dark mode in reports and logs, and makes it more convenient to programmatically set keyword arguments. For more info about everything that’s new in RF 7.0 see the updated release notes.
Due to the second release candidate, the final release is delayed a bit and now planned for next Wednesday. I recommend everyone to test this release candidate in their environments to see are there problems with their tests, tasks, libraries or tools. If there are problems, we can still fix them before the final release, but only if we know about them.
Big thanks for everyone who has already tested the first release candidate and earlier preview releases!
Release candidate 3 with few more bug fixes is now out. The updated release notes are here.
The final release is targeted for this Wednesday. If you have just returned from holidays, now would be an excellent time to test how the release candidate works in your environment.
There’s some documentation work still to be done and the final release is delayed. The plan is to get it out on Thursday or latest on Friday.
There have been no code changes after the rc 3 and no code changes are planned either. You can thus use the rc 3 as if it was the final release. Exactly that code would have been released today if the documentation would have been ready.