# ansible-later [![Build Status](https://cloud.drone.io/api/badges/xoxys/ansible-later/status.svg)](https://cloud.drone.io/xoxys/ansible-later) [![](https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/ansible-later.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/ansible-later/) [![](https://img.shields.io/pypi/status/ansible-later.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/ansible-later/) [![](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/ansible-later.svg)](https://pypi.org/project/ansible-later/) [![codecov](https://codecov.io/gh/xoxys/ansible-later/branch/master/graph/badge.svg)](https://codecov.io/gh/xoxys/ansible-later) This is a fork of Will Thames [ansible-review](https://github.com/willthames/ansible-review) so credits goes to him for his work on ansible-review and ansible-lint. `ansible-later` is a best pratice scanner and linting tool. In most cases, if you write ansibel roles in a team, it helps to have a coding or best practice guideline in place. This will make ansible roles more readable for all maintainers and can reduce the troubleshooting time. `ansible-later` does _**not**_ ensure that your role will work as expected. For Deployment test you can use other tools like [molecule](https://github.com/ansible/molecule). The project name is an acronym for **L**ovely **A**utomation **TE**sting f**R**mework. ## Table of Content - [Setup](#setup) - [Using pip](#using-pip) - [From source](#from-source) - [Configuration](#configuration) - [Default settings](#default-settings) - [CLI Options](#cli-options) - [Usage](#usage) - [Buildin rules](#buildin-rules) - [Build your own rules](#build-your-own-rules) - [The standards file](#the-standards-file) - [Candidates](#candidates) - [Minimal standards checks](#minimal-standards-checks) - [License](#license) - [Maintainers and Contributors](#maintainers-and-contributors) --- ### Setup #### Using pip ```Shell # From internal pip repo as user pip install ansible-later --user # .. or as root sudo pip install ansible-later ``` #### From source ```Shell # Install dependency git clone https://github.com/xoxys/ansible-later export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:`pwd`/ansible-later/ansiblelater export PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/ansible-later/bin ``` ### Configuration ansible-later comes with some default settigs which should be sufficent for most users to start, but you can adjust most settings to your needs. Changes can be made in a yaml configuration file or through cli options which will be processed in the following order (last wins): - default config (build-in) - global config file (this will depend on your operating system) - folderbased config file (`.later.yml` file in current working folder) - cli options Be careful! YAML Attributes will be overwritten while lists in any config file will be merged. To make it easier to review a singel file e.g. for debugging purpose, amsible-later will ignore `exclude_files` and `ignore_dotfiles` options. #### Default settings ```YAML --- ansible: # Add the name of used custom ansible modules. # Otherwise ansible-later can't detect unknown modules # and will through an error. custom_modules: [] # Settings for variable formatting rule (ANSIBLE0004) double-braces: max-spaces-inside: 1 min-spaces-inside: 1 # Global logging configuration # If you would like to force colored output (e.g. non-tty) # set emvironment variable `PY_COLORS=1` logging: # You can enable json logging if a parsable output is required json: False # Possible options debug | info | warning | error | critical level: "warning" # Global settings for all defined rules rules: # list of files to exclude exclude_files: [] # Examples: # - molecule/ # - files/**/*.py # List of Ansible rule ID's # If empty all rules will be used. filter: [] # All dotfiles (including hidden folders) are excluded by default. # You can disable this setting and handle dotfiles by yourself with `exclude_files`. ignore_dotfiles: True # Path to the folder containing your custom standards file standards: ansiblelater/data # Block to control included yamlllint rules. # See https://yamllint.readthedocs.io/en/stable/rules.html yamllint: colons: max-spaces-after: 1 max-spaces-before: 0 document-start: present: True empty-lines: max: 1 max-end: 1 max-start: 0 hyphens: max-spaces-after: 1 indentation: check-multi-line-strings: False indent-sequences: True spaces: 2 ``` #### CLI Options You can get all available cli options by running `ansible-later --help`: ```Shell $ ansible-later --help usage: ansible-later [-h] [-c CONFIG_FILE] [-r RULES.STANDARDS] [-s RULES.FILTER] [-v] [-q] [--version] [rules.files [rules.files ...]] Validate ansible files against best pratice guideline positional arguments: rules.files optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit -c CONFIG_FILE, --config CONFIG_FILE location of configuration file -r RULES.STANDARDS, --rules RULES.STANDARDS location of standards rules -s RULES.FILTER, --standards RULES.FILTER limit standards to specific ID's -v increase log level -q decrease log level --version show program's version number and exit ``` ### Usage ```Shell ansible-later FILES ``` Where FILES is a space delimited list of files to review. You can also pass glob patterns to ansible-later: ```Shell # Review single files ansible-later meta/main.yml tasks/install.yml # Review all yml files (including subfolders) ansible-later **/*.yml ``` ansible-later will review inventory files, role f0iles, python code (modules, plugins) and playbooks. - The goal is that each file that changes in a changeset should be reviewable simply by passing those files as the arguments to ansible-later. - Using `{{ playbook_dir }}` in sub roles is so far very hard. - This should work against various repository styles - per-role repository - roles with sub-roles - per-playbook repository - It should work with roles requirement files and with local roles ### Buildin rules Reviews are nothing without some rules or standards against which to review. ansible-later comes with a couple of built-in checks explained in the following table. | Rule | ID | Description | Parameter | |---------------------------------|-------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------| | check_yaml_empty_lines | LINT0001 | YAML should not contain unnecessarily empty lines. | {max: 1, max-start: 0, max-end: 1} | | check_yaml_indent | LINT0002 | YAML should be correctly indented. | {spaces: 2, check-multi-line-strings: false, indent-sequences: true} | | check_yaml_hyphens | LINT0003 | YAML should use consitent number of spaces after hyphens (-). | {max-spaces-after: 1} | | check_yaml_document_start | LINT0004 | YAML should contain document start marker. | {document-start: {present: true}} | | check_yaml_colons | LINT0005 | YAML should use consitent number of spaces around colons. | {colons: {max-spaces-before: 0, max-spaces-after: 1}} | | check_yaml_file | LINT0006 | Roles file should be in yaml format. | | | check_yaml_has_content | LINT0007 | Files should contain useful content. | | | check_native_yaml | LINT0008 | Use YAML format for tasks and handlers rather than key=value. | | | check_line_between_tasks | ANSIBLE0001 | Single tasks should be separated by an empty line. | | | check_meta_main | ANSIBLE0002 | Meta file should contain a basic subset of parameters. | author, description, min_ansible_version, platforms, dependencies | | check_unique_named_task | ANSIBLE0003 | Tasks and handlers must be uniquely named within a file. | | | check_braces | ANSIBLE0004 | YAML should use consitent number of spaces around variables. | | | check_scm_in_src | ANSIBLE0005 | Use scm key rather than src: scm+url in requirements file. | | | check_named_task | ANSIBLE0006 | Tasks and handlers must be named. | excludes: meta, debug, include\_\*, import\_\*, block | | check_name_format | ANSIBLE0007 | Name of tasks and handlers must be formatted. | formats: first letter capital | | check_command_instead_of_module | ANSIBLE0008 | Commands should not be used in place of modules. | | | check_install_use_latest | ANSIBLE0009 | Package managers should not install with state=latest. | | | check_shell_instead_command | ANSIBLE0010 | Use Shell only when piping, redirecting or chaining commands. | | | check_command_has_changes | ANSIBLE0011 | Commands should be idempotent and only used with some checks. | | | check_empty_string_compare | ANSIBLE0012 | Don't compare to "" - use `when: var` or `when: not var`. | | | check_compare_to_literal_bool | ANSIBLE0013 | Don't compare to True/False - use `when: var` or `when: not var`. | | | check_literal_bool_format | ANSIBLE0014 | Literal bools should be written as `True/False` or `yes/no`. | forbidden values are `true false TRUE FALSE Yes No YES NO` | | check_become_user | ANSIBLE0015 | `become` should be always used combined with `become_user`. | | | check_filter_separation | ANSIBLE0016 | Jinja2 filters should be separated with spaces. | | ### Build your own rules #### The standards file A standards file comprises a list of standards, and optionally some methods to check those standards. Create a file called standards.py (this can import other modules) ```Python from ansiblelater include Standard, Result tasks_are_uniquely_named = Standard(dict( # ID's are optional but if you use ID's they have to be unique id="ANSIBLE0003", # Short description of the standard goal name="Tasks and handlers must be uniquely named within a single file", check=check_unique_named_task, version="0.1", types=["playbook", "task", "handler"], )) standards = [ tasks_are_uniquely_named, role_must_contain_meta_main, ] ``` When you add new standards, you should increment the version of your standards. Your playbooks and roles should declare what version of standards you are using, otherwise ansible-later assumes you're using the latest. The declaration is done by adding standards version as first line in the file. e.g. ```INI # Standards: 1.2 ``` To add standards that are advisory, don't set the version. These will cause a message to be displayed but won't constitute a failure. When a standard version is higher than declared version, a message will be displayed 'WARN: Future standard' and won't constitute a failure. An example standards file is available at [ansiblelater/examples/standards.py](ansiblelater/examples/standards.py) If you only want to check one or two standards quickly (perhaps you want to review your entire code base for deprecated bare words), you can use the `-s` flag with the name of your standard. You can pass `-s` multiple times. ```Shell git ls-files | xargs ansible-later -s "bare words are deprecated for with_items" ``` You can see the name of the standards being checked for each different file by running `ansible-later` with the `-v` option. #### Candidates Each file passed to `ansible-later` will be classified. The result is a `Candidate` object which contains some meta informations and is an instance of one of following object types. | Object type | Description | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Task | all files within the parent dir `tasks` | | Handler | all files within the parent dir `handler` | | RoleVars | all files within the parent dir `vars` or `default` | | GroupVars | all files (including subdirs) within the parent dir `group_vars` | | HostVars | all files (including subdirs) within the parent dir `host_vars` | | Meta | all files within the parent dir `meta` | | Code | all files within the parent dir `library`, `lookup_plugins`, `callback_plugins` and `filter_plugins` or python files (`.py`) | | Inventory | all files within the parent dir `inventories` and `inventory` or `hosts` as filename | | Rolesfile | all files with `rolesfile` or `requirements` in filename | | Makefile | all files with `Makefile` in filename | | Template | all files (including subdirs) within the parent dir `templates` or jinja2 files (`.j2`) | | File | all files (including subdirs) within the parent dir `files` | | Playbook | all yaml files (`.yml` or `.yaml`) not maching a previous object type | | Doc | all files with `README` in filename | #### Minimal standards checks A typical standards check will look like: ```Python def check_playbook_for_something(candidate, settings): result = Result(candidate.path) # empty result is a success with no output with open(candidate.path, 'r') as f: for (lineno, line) in enumerate(f): if line is dodgy: # enumerate is 0-based so add 1 to lineno result.errors.append(Error(lineno+1, "Line is dodgy: reasons")) return result ``` All standards check take a candidate object, which has a path attribute. The type can be inferred from the class name (i.e. `type(candidate).__name__`) or from the table [here](#candidates). They return a `Result` object, which contains a possibly empty list of `Error` objects. `Error` objects are formed of a line number and a message. If the error applies to the whole file being reviewed, set the line number to `None`. Line numbers are important as `ansible-later` can review just ranges of files to only review changes (e.g. through piping the output of `git diff` to `ansible-later`). ### License This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file for details. ### Maintainers and Contributors [Robert Kaussow](https://github.com/xoxys)