Chapter 4. Scaffolding an Ansible project with the AI assistant

Procedure

1. Open the Copilot chat window by clicking the GitHub Copilot icon in the VS Code sidebar.

2. Enter a natural language prompt requesting Ansible best practices. For example:

   • Show me Ansible best practices and coding guidelines so that I can write high-quality playbooks.

     This triggers the ansible_content_best_practices tool, which displays the guidelines for you to read within the editor.

3. Enter a prompt requesting The Zen of Ansible. For example:

   • Show me the Zen of Ansible

     This triggers the zen_of_ansible tool, which will list Zen of Ansible principles for you to read within the editor.

Procedure

1. In the Copilot chat window, enter a prompt specifying the project name and type. For example:

   • Create a new Ansible playbook project called `webserver-deployment.`

     This triggers the create_ansible_projects tool. The extension then executes ansible-creator init playbook to generate the content.

1. Navigate to the VS Code Explorer view.
2. Locate the new directory (per the example above, webserver-deployment/).

3. Confirm the presence of standard artifacts such as:

   1. Initial playbook files.
   2. Recommended configuration files (such as ansible.cfg, inventory).