Chapter 5. Writing and running a playbook with Ansible development 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:

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

   

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3. If you want to add new content to the playbook, use the following rules:

   • Every playbook file must finish with a blank line.
   • Trailing spaces at the end of lines are not allowed.
   • Every playbook and every play require an identifier (name).
4. Save your playbook file.

1. Open a playbook in VS Code.

2. Hover your mouse over a keyword or a module name: the Ansible extension provides documentation:

   

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3. If you begin to type the name of a module, for example ansible.builtin.ping, the extension provides a list of suggestions.

   Select one of the suggestions to autocomplete the line.

   

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1. The following playbook contains multiple errors. Copy and paste it into a new file in VS Code.

   - name:
     hosts: localhost
     tasks:
      - name:
        ansible.builtin.ping:

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   The errors are indicated with a wavy underline in VS Code.

2. Hover your mouse over an error to view the details:

   

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3. Playbook files that contain errors are indicated with a number in the Explorer pane.

4. Select the Problems tab of the VS Code terminal to view a list of the errors.

   

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   $[0].tasks[0].name None is not of type 'string' indicates that the playbook does not have a label.