Ansible Language Server

This language server adds support for Ansible and is currently used by the following projects:

• Ansible extension for vscode/codium
• Ansible extension for coc.nvim

Features

Syntax highlighting

Ansible keywords, module names and module options, as well as standard YAML elements are recognized and highlighted distinctly. Jinja expressions are supported too, also those in Ansible conditionals (when, failed_when, changed_when, check_mode), which are not placed in double curly braces.

The screenshots and animations presented in this README have been taken using the One Dark Pro theme. The default VS Code theme will not show the syntax elements as distinctly unless customized. Virtually any theme other than default will do better.

Validation

While you type, the syntax of your Ansible scripts is verified and any feedback is provided instantaneously.

Integration with ansible-lint

On opening and saving a document, ansible-lint is executed in the background and any findings are presented as errors. You might find it useful that rules/tags added to warn_list (see Ansible Lint Documentation) are shown as warnings instead.

If you also install yamllint, ansible-lint will detect it and incorporate into the linting process. Any findings reported by yamllint will be exposed in VSCode as errors/warnings.

Note

If ansible-lint is not installed/found or running ansible-lint results in error it will fallback to ansible --syntax-check for validation.

Smart auto-completion

The extension tries to detect whether the cursor is on a play, block or task etc. and provides suggestions accordingly. There are also a few other rules that improve user experience:

• the name property is always suggested first
• on module options, the required properties are shown first, and aliases are shown last, otherwise ordering from the documentation is preserved
• FQCNs (fully qualified collection names) are inserted only when necessary; collections configured with the collections keyword are honored. This behavior can be disabled in extension settings.

Auto-closing Jinja expressions

When writing a Jinja expression, you only need to type "{{<space>, and it will be mirrored behind the cursor (including the space). You can also select the whole expression and press space to put spaces on both sides of the expression.

Documentation reference

Documentation is available on hover for Ansible keywords, modules and module options. The extension works on the same principle as ansible-doc, providing the documentation straight from the Python implementation of the modules.

Jump to module code

You may also open the implementation of any module using the standard Go to Definition operation, for instance, by clicking on the module name while holding ctrl/cmd.

Language Server Settings

The following settings are supported.

• ansible.ansible.path: Path to the ansible executable.
• ansible.ansible.useFullyQualifiedCollectionNames: Toggles use of fully qualified collection names (FQCN) when inserting a module name. Disabling it will only use FQCNs when necessary, that is when the collection is not configured for the task.
• ansible.ansibleLint.arguments: Optional command line arguments to be appended to ansible-lint invocation. See ansible-lint documentation.
• ansible.ansibleLint.enabled: Enables/disables use of ansible-lint.
• ansible.ansibleLint.path: Path to the ansible-lint executable.
• ansible.ansibleNavigator.path: Path to the ansible-navigator executable.
• ansible.ansiblePlaybook.path: Path to the ansible-playbook executable.
• ansible.executionEnvironment.containerEngine: The container engine to be used while running with execution environment. Valid values are auto, podman and docker. For auto it will look for podman then docker.
• ansible.executionEnvironment.enabled: Enable or disable the use of an execution environment.
• ansible.executionEnvironment.image: Specify the name of the execution environment image.
• ansible.executionEnvironment.pullPolicy: Specify the image pull policy. Valid values are always, missing, never and tag. Setting always will always pull the image when extension is activated or reloaded. Setting missing will pull if not locally available. Setting never will never pull the image and setting tag will always pull if the image tag is 'latest', otherwise pull if not locally available.
• ansible.python.interpreterPath: Path to the python/python3 executable. This setting may be used to make the extension work with ansible and ansible-lint installations in a Python virtual environment.
• ansible.python.activationScript: Path to a custom activate script, which will be used instead of the setting above to run in a Python virtual environment.

Developer support

For details on setting up development environment and debugging refer to the development document.

Requirements

• Ansible 2.9+
• Ansible Lint (required, unless you disable linter support)
• yamllint (optional)

For Windows users, this extension works perfectly well with extensions such as Remote - WSL and Remote - Containers.

If you have any other extension providing language support for Ansible, you might need to uninstall it first.

Known limitations

• The shorthand syntax for module options (key=value pairs) is not supported.
• Only Jinja expressions inside Ansible YAML files are supported. In order to have syntax highlighting of Jinja template files, you'll need to install other extension.
• Jinja blocks (inside Ansible YAML files) are not supported yet.

Credit

Based on the good work done by Tomasz Maciążek