ansibleUse when automating infrastructure with Ansible — playbook development (tasks, handlers, variables, templates, conditionals, loops), role design (Galaxy structure, defaults, dependencies), inventory management (static/dynamic, groups, host_vars/group_vars), collections (ansible.builtin, community, custom), Ansible Vault (encryption), AWX/Ansible Automation …
Independent GitHub snapshot · Automated classification · Original documentation governs
Covers Ansible core (ansible-core 2.15+/2.16+/2.17+), collections ecosystem, AWX/Ansible Automation Platform, and testing. For target node configuration see: rhel-server-admin, ubuntu-server-admin, windows-powershell.
Detailed code examples, patterns, and configuration are in the reference files below. Read the relevant file when working on that area.
| File | Covers |
|---|---|
| awx-security-performance-testing.md | AWX/Ansible Automation Platform (job templates, workflows, RBAC, surveys, API), security patterns (secret management, SSH hardening, lint rules), performance tuning (forks, pipelining, mitogen, fact caching), and testing (Molecule, ansible-lint, CI integration) |
| fundamentals-playbooks.md | installation, playbook structure, ad-hoc commands, ansible.cfg, connection types, tasks (core patterns, variables, conditionals, loops, blocks, error handling), handlers, includes vs imports |
| inventory-vault-advanced.md | inventory management (static/dynamic, group_vars/host_vars, patterns), Ansible Vault (encryption commands, vault IDs, rekeying), and advanced patterns (delegation, serial/rolling, async, custom modules, callback plugins, dynamic includes) |
| templates-roles-collections.md | Jinja2 templates, file management modules, role design (Galaxy structure, defaults, dependencies), and collections (installing, using, creating custom collections) |
| Anti-Pattern | Why It Fails | Correct Approach |
|---|---|---|
Using command/shell for package installs | Not idempotent — reruns always show changed, no rollback, no version pinning | Use ansible.builtin.dnf, ansible.builtin.apt, or platform-specific package modules |
| Hardcoding IPs and hostnames in playbooks | Breaks when inventory changes, makes playbooks non-portable | Use inventory variables, host_vars/group_vars, and dynamic inventory plugins |
| One massive playbook with no roles | Becomes unmaintainable past 200 lines, no reuse across projects | Break into roles with Galaxy structure; one role = one concern |
| Storing vault password in the repo | Anyone with repo access can decrypt all secrets | Use --vault-password-file pointing to a file outside the repo, or integrate with external secret manager |
Running playbooks without --check --diff first in production | Unexpected changes hit live systems with no preview | Always dry-run with --check --diff on production inventories before applying |
Ignoring ansible-lint warnings | Leads to deprecated syntax, bare module names, and missing changed_when — breaks on ansible-core upgrades | Run ansible-lint in CI; treat warnings as errors for production playbooks |
| Domain | Skill |
|---|---|
| RHEL server admin (targets) | rhel-server-admin |
| Ubuntu server admin (targets) | ubuntu-server-admin |
| Windows PowerShell (WinRM targets) | windows-powershell |
| Docker containers | docker-admin |
| Database config on RHEL | rhel-databases |
| Database config on Ubuntu | ubuntu-databases |
| IBM MQ automation | ibm-mq |
| IBM WebSphere automation | ibm-websphere |
| Centrify/AD integration | linux-centrify |
| BMC Control-M job scheduling | control-m |