Visual Studio Code extension for Ansible

Table of Content

• Features
• Configuration
• Prerequisites
• Usage
  • Auto completion
  • Code Snippets
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Yaml validation
  • Run Ansible playbook
    • Run Playbook in Docker
    • Run Playbook in Local Ansible
    • Run Playbook in Cloud Shell
    • Run Playbook Remotely via ssh
    • Auto File Copy on saving
• Feedback and Questions
• License
• Telemetry
• Contributing

Features

• Auto completion. Auto completion Ansible directives, modules and plugins from Ansible doc, Auto completion for variables. Disable auto completion by setting ansible.autocompletion to false.
• Code snippets. Press Ctrl + Space, Ansible playbook code snippets will show up.
• Syntax highlighting. Enable syntax highlighting by setting files.associations to ansible in settings.json.
• Yaml validation. Yaml validation by leverage Yaml language server.
• Code navigation by Symbols, press Ctrl + Shift + O.
• Hover over module names, to show module documentation. Disable hovering over by setting ansible.hover to false.
• Run playbook from Docker.
• Run playbook from local Ansible installation.
• Run playbook from Cloud Shell.
• Run playbook remotely via ssh.
• Auto File Copy to remote host on saving.

Configuration

This extension provides below configurations in settings.json.

Cnfig Name	Default Value	Description
ansible.hover	true	Enable/Disable hover over module name functionality.
ansible.autocompletion	true	Enable/Disable ansible autocompletion(including code snippets) functionality. To enable ansible autocompletion only in specific yaml files, set ansible.autocompletion = false, then add # ansible-configured header in first line of yaml file.
ansible.credentialsFile	$HOME/.vscode/ansible-credentials.yml	Specify ansible credentials file path, used when run playbook in Docker/Local Ansible.
ansible.termininalInitCommand	Default is docker run command for Docker.	Specify customized terminal init command when run playbook in Docker.
ansible.dockerImage	microsoft/ansible:latest	Docker image name when running playbook in Docker.
ansible.reuseSSHTerminal	true	Enable/Disable SSH terminal reusing.
ansible.customOptions	null	Customize run playbook options. eg. -i xxxx -vvv.
ansible.fileCopyConfig	null	File copying configuration when running playbook remotely via SSH. It's array of configuration. Please see detail at here

Prerequisites

platform	prerequisite
Run Playbook in Cloud Shell/Remotely via ssh	nodejs >= 6.0
Run Playbook in Docker	Docker
Run Playbook in Local Ansible	Ansible

Usage

Associate your Yaml files with ansible language in VSCode settings.json:

   "files.associations": {
        "**/*.yml": "ansible"
    },

Code snippets

Code snippets will be in auto-completed list with suffix _snippet. Press tab to move inside snippet parameters.

Syntax highlighting

Enable syntax highlighting by adding files.associations in settings.json, to associate your paths with ansible language, please see sample.

Run Ansible playbook

Run Playbook in Docker

1. Make sure Docker is installed and running. For non-Windows platform, please configure Docker run without sudo.

2. Default docker image is microsoft/ansible:latest, which is latest Ansible version. Customizing your own docker image by configuration item ansible.dockerImage, customizing docker init command by configuration ansible.termininalInitCommand, eg. docker run -i -t microsoft/ansible:ansible2.5.5 /bin/bash. Detail please see configuration.

3. For Windows user, please share your Windows driver where vscode workspace sits on with docker. This is because the extension will map your workspace containing playbook with docker.
   

4. This step is optional. If you want to run cloud provider specific Ansible modules, you need set cloud credentials in credential yaml file, default path is $HOME/.vscode/ansible-credentials.yml, or change credential file path by settings item ansible.credentialsFile. Credential file template is at here.

5. Press F1, type: Ansible, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Docker. Or right click playbook yaml file, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Docker.

   NOTE

   • Docker on Windows is not as stable as on other platforms, please try to restart Docker in case of any issue.
   • Downloading Docker image first time usage may be time consuming in case of slow network connection.

Run Playbook in Local Ansible

1. Make sure Ansible is installed.
2. This step is optional. If you want to run cloud provider specific Ansible modules, please setup cloud credentials by following Ansible instruction. Or you can set cloud credentials in credential file, default path is $HOME/.vscode/ansible-credentials.yml, change credential file path by settings item ansible.credentialsFile. Credential file template is at here.
3. Press F1, type: Ansible, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Local Ansible. Or right click playbook yaml file, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Local Ansible.

Run Playbook in Cloud Shell

1. Important Please setup Cloud Shell for first time usage in Azure Portal by following this instruction. After setup, input cmd az account show to learn your current subscription setting.
2. Install Azure Account VSCode extension, which is used for Azure login.
3. Press F1, type: Azure: Sign In, do Azure login.
4. Press F1, type: Ansible, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Cloud Shell. Or right click playbook yaml file, choose Run Ansible Playbook in Cloud Shell.
5. Confirm awareness on Azure usage fee. Please refer to this document to learn more about Azure Cloud Shell pricing.
6. Known issue due to adal issue, introduced in azure account extension, user might see Entry not found error when connect to cloud shell. Please retry open cloud shell.

Run Playbook Remotely via ssh

1. Press F1, choose Run Ansible Playbook Remotely via ssh, follow wizard to pick up/add remote host. Or configure your remote server in $HOME/.ssh/servers.json like below.

   [
        {
            "host": "your host",
            "port": 22,
            "user": "your user name",
            "password": "your ssh password",
            "key": "your private key",
            "passphrase": "your passphrase"
        }
   ]
   

Files copy to remote on saving

1. Configure file copying to remote host on saving as below in settings.json. sourcePath will be copied to remote server as targetPath when configuration added/updated. copyOnSave will copy local files saved to remote host.

    "ansible.fileCopyConfig": 
        {
            "server": "remote-host-name",
            "sourcePath": "local file/folder to copy from, eg. e:\\testfolder\\ansibleplaybooks",
            "targetPath": "remote file/folder to copy to, eg. /home/user/ansibleplaybooks",
            "copyOnSave": true
        }
    ]

There's notification message at right side of status bar.

Feedback and Questions

You can submit bug or feature suggestion via issues.

License

MIT license.

Telemetry

This extension collects telemetry data to help improve our products. Please read Microsoft privacy statement to learn more. If you opt out to send telemetry data to Microsoft, please set below configuration in settings.json:

telemetry.enableTelemetry = false

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Please see below documents to learn how to contribute:

• How to build, run and debug from source
• Coding Guidelines

Release Notes and Thank you

Please see our releases to see detail in each release, and Thank you. Or check CHANGELOG.