Ansible playbook for creating ansible playbooks.

The playbook sets up the common ansible project structure described in the ansible best practices.

Use either of the methods below to set up a local directory and file structure ready for ansible-playbook use. All that's needed is to modify the inventory, then add tasks, handlers, files and templates.

ansible-playbook \
init.yml \
-i production \
--connection=local \
--extra-vars='{"roles": ["web", "database"], "project_dir": "/tmp/ansible-project"}'

or using a JSON file with variables:

ansible-playbook \
init.yml \
-i production \
--connection=local \
--extra-vars='@project.json'

Default project JSON file:

{
    "roles": [
        "web",
        "database"
    ],
    "project_dir": "/tmp/ansible-project"
}

roles: array of roles that should be created

project_dir: the directory in which to create the ansible project

The project will be built locally by default.

To run on a remote server, remove --connection=local from the CLI and change the production inventory file to specify the destination server.

In the ansible best practices the inventory file is called production. I chose to follow this convention for the inventory of ansible-init itself. If you prefer a different name for the ansible-init inventory (like inventory), just change the name of the file and run the ansible-playbook with -i inventory instead. If you prefer different inventory files for your generated project, update the list in the "Create inventory files" task in roles/init/tasks/main.yml

roles is a reserved word: [WARNING]: Found variable using reserved name: roles. This variable name will change in future versions, probably a breaking change.

/tmp/ansible-project/
├── database.yml
├── group_vars
├── host_vars
├── library
├── master.yml
├── production
├── roles
│   ├── database
│   │   ├── defaults    
│   │   ├── files
│   │   ├── handlers
│   │   │   └── main.yml
│   │   ├── meta
│   │   ├── tasks
│   │   │   └── main.yml
│   │   ├── templates
│   │   └── vars
│   └── web
│       ├── defaults        
│       ├── files
│       ├── handlers
│       │   └── main.yml
│       ├── meta
│       ├── tasks
│       │   └── main.yml
│       ├── templates
│       └── vars
├── staging
└── web.yml

---
# master playbook

- include: web.yml
- include: database.yml

---
# web role

- hosts: web
  roles:
    - { role: web }

---
# Tasks for web

#- name: example
#  action: example
#  notify:
#    - restart service
#  tags:
#    - example

---
# Handlers for web

#- name: example restart
#  action: service name=service state=restarted

• Initial release.

• Added library to main directory and defaults to role directories
• Added default group_vars/all file
• Fixed YAML syntax to quote strings and use colon separators for attributes
• Fixed unquoted {{ roles }} variable in [roles/init/tasks/main.yml](roles/init/tasks/main.yml. This was breaking role creation in newer versions of ansible.

MIT: https://davestern.mit-license.org