Add note to 2.4 porting guide about initial playbook relative host/group_vars and inheritance (#34769)

* Add note to 2.4 porting guide about initial playbook relative host/group_vars and inheritance

(cherry picked from commit ae49dd65d9b52dea3c5c07c924e7008a8448b67f)

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/docsite/rst/porting_guide_2.4.rst b/docs/docsite/rst/porting_guide_2.4.rst
index 67b629be12..c48a23d72d 100644
--- a/docs/docsite/rst/porting_guide_2.4.rst
+++ b/docs/docsite/rst/porting_guide_2.4.rst
@@ -35,6 +35,16 @@ The ``inventory_file`` remains unchanged, as it was always host specific.
 
 A bug was fixed with the inventory path/directory, which was defaulting to the current working directory. This caused ``group_vars`` and ``host_vars`` to be picked up from the current working directory instead of just adjacent to the playbook or inventory directory when a host list (comma separated host names) was provided as inventory.
 
+Initial playbook relative group_vars and host_vars
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+In Ansible versions prior to 2.4, the inventory system would maintain the context of the initial playbook that was executed. This allowed successively included playbooks from other directories to inherit group_vars and host_vars placed relative to the top level playbook file.
+
+Due to some behavioral inconsistencies, this functionality will not be included in the new
+inventory system starting with Ansible version 2.4.
+
+Similar functionality can still be achieved by using vars_files, include_vars, or group_vars and host_vars placed relative to the inventory file.
+
 Deprecated
 ==========