Ansible Toolkit

A full-featured VS Code extension that turns the editor into a complete working environment for developing and debugging Ansible projects.

Features

• Syntax highlighting — YAML/Ansible and Jinja2 templates ({{ }}, {% %}, filters, ansible_* special variables).
• Autocomplete — module names (apt, yum, copy, template, systemd, docker and 40+ more), options for the current module, and playbook keywords.
• Run playbooks — from the editor and the command palette into the integrated terminal, with a default inventory.
• ansible-lint — diagnostics on save and on demand, with messages parsed into editor problems.
• Graphs — an interactive graph of roles and playbooks (dependencies from roles/*/meta/main.yml, import_playbook), plus an execution graph (ok/changed/failed/unreachable).
• Secret detection — scans for AWS access keys, private keys, and plain-text passwords/tokens, with a "wrap in vault" Code Action.
• Debugging helpers — task listing (--list-tasks) and running from a specific task (--start-at-task).
• Sequential runs (colab-style) — run playbooks/commands in order with a progress log, like notebook cells. Steps come from a run-queue.yml file or a multi-select of .yml files.

Installation

From .vsix (prebuilt package)

1. Build the package:

   cd vscode-extension
   npm install
   npm run compile
   npx vsce package
   

2. In VS Code: Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX... → select ansible-toolkit-0.1.0.vsix.

From source (development)

cd vscode-extension
npm install
npm run compile

Then open the vscode-extension folder in VS Code and press F5 (Run Extension). The launch configuration is already provided in .vscode/launch.json.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.85+
• ansible-playbook and ansible-inventory on PATH (or set the path in settings).
• (optional) ansible-lint on PATH for the linter.

Settings

Commands (Ctrl+Shift+P)

• Ansible: Run playbook
• Ansible: Run ansible-lint
• Ansible: Show project graph
• Ansible: List playbook tasks
• Ansible: Run from task
• Ansible: Find secrets in project
• Ansible: Run playbooks in sequence (queue)

Sequential runs (run-queue.yml)

To run playbooks one after another, create a run-queue.yml file in the project root:

commands:
  - name: Install dependencies
    run: ansible-playbook deps.yml
  - name: Configure hosts
    playbook: configure.yml
  - name: Deploy
    playbook: deploy.yml
  - ansible-playbook post-deploy.yml   # bare command strings also work

Each step only starts after the previous one finishes. Progress and output are written to the "Ansible Run Queue" output channel. If the file is absent, the command offers a multi-select of playbooks instead.

Project structure

vscode-extension/
├── package.json              # extension manifest
├── language-configuration.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── syntaxes/                 # TextMate grammars (Ansible + Jinja2)
├── fileicons/                # file icons
└── src/
    ├── extension.ts          # entry point, command registration
    ├── runner.ts             # playbook/lint/list-tasks execution
    ├── lint.ts               # ansible-lint output parser
    ├── queue.ts              # sequential run queue (run-queue.yml)
    ├── completion/           # autocomplete (dictionary + provider)
    ├── secrets/              # secret detection
    ├── graph/                # graphs (parsers + webview panel)
    └── debug/                # debug helpers (list-tasks, start-at-task)

Tests

npm test