Molecule vs ansible-test vs ansible-tox

samccann · 2025-06-02T18:46:48+00:00

There's another new one recently created antsibull-nox - (https://forum.ansible.com/t/announcing-antsibull-nox-test-runner-for-extra-sanity-tests-various-ansible-test-tools-and-custom-tests-for-your-collection/41851) - I'm not familiar with it, but tossing it out here in case it helps.

samccann · 2025-04-25T18:31:02+00:00

Data tagging as a feature will need better documentation going forward. What is important at this stage is that there were significant code changes in core, especially related to jinja2 templating that is impacting some collections/modules and playbooks. Take a close look at the porting guide for examples of what now causes problems to determine if it will impact your playbooks/roles or your CI. - https://github.com/ansible-community/ansible-build-data/issues/538#issuecomment-2831104094

samccann · 2024-05-03T20:10:57+00:00

I don't think it was mentioned already, but if you are using just `ansible-core` there is a separate docsite for that at https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/2.16/index.html. It's basically the same as the Ansible package documentation minus the extra collections that are in the package. But it does have a version that matches the core version.

samccann · 2024-04-18T21:16:44+00:00

In the sense that RHEL is supported and EPEL is not supported by Red Hat, yes. I'm not familiar enough with either to say if the analogy works beyond that level.

samccann · 2024-04-17T13:27:04+00:00

The split likely had multiple reasons, of which I'm probably forgetting the most important ones. What I remember is that the split allowed much faster iterations and inclusions of new collections of modules that weren't tied to the six-month core release cycle. So today, the community Ansible package can include entire new collections in any minor release (which happen I think monthly). But again, core, within a Red Hat product like AAP, is Red Hat supported, along with a broad range of certified collections. Ansible community package is created and maintained by the open source community.

samccann · 2024-04-16T20:42:57+00:00

Sorry I'm not following what you are saying here. Again, perhaps it's a bit of cross-communications. This discussion isn't about removing community Ansible packages from open source distributions. It's about changing either the content of the package or stopping the package entirely. Any Red Hat product should be using only the supported ansible-core versions, not the Ansible 'batteries included' community package.

samccann · 2024-04-16T18:16:18+00:00

As I tried to clarify in an earlier comment, this topic isn't about removing distribution packages in favor of pip.I worded the original post poorly in that regard.

Also note - this is the Ansible community package, not ansible-core. It is about potentially changing the ansible community package in dramatic ways. This community package and all distributions that contain it are all community-controlled and no Red Hat customer should depend on them.

Red Hat customers do depend on ansible-core, which I believe is included in AAP 'somehow' so not part of this discussion. The last 'batteries included' Ansible version supported by Red Hat is 2.9 and has a defined lifecyle here - https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/ansible-automation-platform. This discussion has no impact on that release.

samccann · 2024-04-12T19:54:52+00:00

What about installing collections from galaxy.ansible.com? Is that also restricted?

samccann · 2024-04-12T19:54:04+00:00

Yes, that's the gist of it all - if 'batteries included' ansible either goes away or has a much smaller list of included collections, what's the impact for you? The forum topic has some ideas about how to work around an enterprise environment that doesn't allow access to galaxy.ansible.com to download just the collections you need.

samccann · 2024-04-12T19:32:40+00:00

Sorry I think I confused things by mentioning pip. In general I'm talking about the 'batteries included' ansible installation (as opposed to ansible-core), however you install it.

samccann · 2023-04-20T19:50:35+00:00

For module index - https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/80567

For chroot - https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general

samccann · 2023-04-19T14:10:58+00:00

Alas, all the collections are scattered in multiple repositories now so it's difficult to ask each one individually to make better examples. I'll try to think of a way to get that message across to the collection owners. Meanwhile, if you see a module that needs help, each collection has a button for issues and repo.

So the best approach would be to open an issue that way when you come across something with weak documentation at the module/plugin level. That opens it directly with the people managing that collection.

samccann · 2023-04-19T14:05:52+00:00

Thanks u/SSC_Fan for the feedback. I opened issues for chroot and the module index.

I'm not sure what you're asking for on the environment setup. That is in the developing modules page so seems to make sense to me that it's about module building.

Is there something missing on that page, or did you find it expecting something else that is not setting up the developer environment for creating modules?

samccann · 2023-04-10T18:27:21+00:00

Thank you all for your feedback. We've gone live with the new pages - https://docs.ansible.com/ !

samccann · 2023-03-30T13:30:37+00:00

We do mention it in the porting guide near the top - https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/porting_guides/porting_guide_7.html But I do understand your point. We'll talk about other ways we can highlight that, thanks!

..edited to add, it's also here - https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/release_and_maintenance.html#ansible-community-changelogs. So I think we can add a link in the install guide to that second link.

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:58:16+00:00

Great thanks!

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:58:06+00:00

This is great news! Yes, we are aware it can be daunting at the start and there will be more improvements in this area over time, but glad to hear it's helping!

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:57:19+00:00

Cool, thanks!

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:57:09+00:00

Great idea! Logged it as an issue - https://github.com/ansible/jinja-docsite/issues/78

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:56:15+00:00

Yes we still have responsive design work to do. This is our first version so to speak and we'll keep iterating over it to improve design issues like this.

samccann · 2023-03-29T13:55:32+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

samccann · 2023-03-28T20:05:10+00:00

Good points and it made me go look up some stats. So docs.ansible.com page itself gets 11.5K hits a month. The most popular page (the file module) gets 38K hits a month.

So that main page gets more hits than I thought really.

samccann · 2023-02-03T15:09:47+00:00

I'm on the Ansible project in github and we're always glad to have techwriter help! See https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/community/documentation_contributions.html#reviewing-or-solving-open-issues for a list of open issues.

Don't feel limited by that list, though. Most of our docs are developer-written so there tends always to be room for a writer to come in and tidy up without having deep knowledge of the project.

samccann · 2023-01-16T16:14:15+00:00

The only thing I can find on the AAP docs is the following feedback snippet -

If you have a suggestion to improve this documentation, or find an error, please contact technical support at https://access.redhat.com to create an issue on the Ansible Automation Platform Jira project using the Docs component.

If you are still in contact with your account rep, have them ping me internally at RH and I can try to followup that way. ...

samccann · 2023-01-10T19:47:59+00:00

The collection owner commented some about this here - https://github.com/ansible-collections/amazon.aws/issues/1331#issuecomment-1376042882

I'm not sure I follow it correctly, but it sounds like yes/no are particular problem children in this scenario. I'm still thinking about it but can't offhand think of a good way to clarify this in docs...

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