Developing automation content

Procedure

1. In VS Code, navigate to your project directory.
2. Click the Ansible icon in the VS Code activity bar to open the Ansible extension.
3. In the Ansible Development Tools section of the Ansible extension, scroll down to the ADD option and select Devcontainer.

4. In the Create a devcontainer page, select the Downstream container image from the Container image options.

   This action adds devcontainer.json files for both Podman and Docker in a .devcontainer directory.

5. Reopen or reload the project directory:

   • If VS Code detects that your directory contains a devcontainer.json file, the following notification appears:

     

     Click Reopen in Container.

   • If the notification does not appear, click the Remote ( ) icon. In the dropdown menu that appears, select Reopen in Container.

6. Select the dev container for Podman or Docker according to the containerization platform you are using.

   The Remote () status in the VS Code Status bar displays opening Remote and a notification indicates the progress in opening the container.

Procedure

1. Run the following command to check whether Simple Content Access (SCA) is enabled:

   $ sudo subscription-manager status

   If Simple Content Access is enabled, the output contains the following message:

   Content Access Mode is set to Simple Content Access.

   1. If Simple Content Access is not enabled, attach the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform SKU:

      $ sudo subscription-manager attach --pool=<sku-pool-id>

2. Install Ansible development tools with the following command:

   $ sudo dnf install --enablerepo=ansible-automation-platform-2.5-for-rhel-8-x86_64-rpms ansible-dev-tools

   $ sudo dnf install --enablerepo=ansible-automation-platform-2.5-for-rhel-9-x86_64-rpms ansible-dev-tools

Procedure

1. Create a new .yml file in VS Code for your playbook, for example example_playbook.yml. Put it in the same directory level as the example site.yml file.

2. Add the following example code into the playbook file and save the file. The playbook consists of a single play that executes a ping to your local machine.

   ---
   - name: My first play
     hosts: localhost
     tasks:
       - name: Ping my hosts
         ansible.builtin.ping:

   Ansible-lint runs in the background and displays errors in the Problems tab of the terminal. There are no errors in this playbook:

   
3. Save your playbook file.

Procedure

1. Initialize your project directory as a git repository.
2. Push your project up to a source control system such as GitHub.

Procedure

1. In a browser, log in to automation controller.
2. Configure a Source Control credential type for your source control system if necessary. See the Creating new credentials section of Using automation execution for more details. https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_ansible_automation_platform/2.5/html/using_automation_execution/controller-credentials#controller-create-credential
3. In automation controller, create a project for the GitHub repository where you stored your playbook project. Refer to the Projects chapter of Using automation execution.
4. Create a job template that uses a playbook from the project that you created. Refer to the Job Templates chapter of Using automation execution.
5. Run your playbook from automation controller by launching the job template. Refer to the Launching a job template section of Using automation execution.

Procedure

1. Open VS Code.
2. Navigate to the directory where you want to create your roles collection.
3. Click the Ansible icon in the VS Code activity bar to open the Ansible extension.

4. Select Get started in the Ansible content creator section.

   The Ansible content creator tab opens.

5. In the Create section, click Ansible collection project.

   The Create new Ansible project tab opens.

6. In the form in the Create Ansible project tab, enter the following:

   • Namespace: Enter a name for your namespace, for example company_namespace.
   • Collection: Enter a name for your collection, for example, myapp_network.

   • Init path: Enter the path to the directory where you want to scaffold your new collection.

     If you enter an existing directory name, the scaffolding process overwrites the contents of that directory. The scaffold process only allows you to use an existing directory if you enable the Force option.

     • If you are using the containerized version of Ansible development tools, the destination directory path is relative to the container, not a path in your local system. To discover the current directory name in the container, run the pwd command in a terminal in VS Code. If the current directory in the container is workspaces, enter workspaces/<current_project>/collections.
     • If you are using a locally installed version of Ansible Dev tools, enter the full path to the directory, for example /user/<username>/path/to/<collection_directory>.
7. Click Create.

Procedure

1. If necessary, rename the directory that contains your role to reflect its content, for example, acl_config or tacacs.

   Roles in collections cannot have hyphens in their names. Use the underscore character (_) instead.

2. Copy the roles directories from your standalone role into the roles/ directory in your collection.

   For example, in a collection called myapp_network, add your roles to the myapp_network/roles/ directory.

3. Copy any plug-ins from your standalone roles into the plugins directory/ for your new collection. The collection directory structure resembles the following.

   company_namespace
   └── myapp_network
       ├── ...
       ├── galaxy.yml
       ├── docs
       ├── extensions
       ├── meta
       ├── plugins
       ├── roles
       │   ├── acl_config
       │   │   ├── README.md
       │   │   ├── defaults
       │   │   ├── files
       │   │   ├── handlers
       │   │   ├── meta
       │   │   ├── tasks
       │   │   ├── templates
       │   │   ├── tests
       │   │   └── vars
       │   └── tacacs
       │       ├── README.md
       │       ├── default
       │       ├── files
       │       ├── handlers
       │       ├── meta
       │       ├── tasks
       │       ├── templates
       │       ├── tests
       │       └── vars
       │   ├── run
       ├── ...
       ├── tests
       └── vars

   The run role is a default role directory that is created when you scaffold the collection.

4. Update your playbooks to use the fully qualified collection name (FQDN) for your new roles in your collection.

Procedure

1. To create a new role, copy the default run role directory that was scaffolded when you created the collection.
2. Define the tasks that you want your role to perform in the tasks/main.yml file. If you are creating a role to reuse tasks in an existing playbook, copy the content in the tasks block of your playbook YAML file. Remove the whitespace to the left of the tasks. Use ansible-lint in VS Code to check your YAML code.
3. If your role depends on another role, add the dependency in the meta/main.yml file.

1. Prerequisite

   • Package your collection into a tarball. Format your collection file name as follows:

Procedure

1. Create a namespace for your collection in private automation hub. See Creating a namespace in the Managing automation content guide.
2. Optional: Add information to your namespace. See Adding additional information and resources to a namespace in the Managing automation content guide.
3. Upload your roles collections tarballs to your namespace. See Uploading collections to your namespaces in the Managing automation content guide.
4. Approve your collection for internal publication. See Uploading collections to your namespaces in the Managing automation content guide.