Ansible Cheat Sheet

Ansible cheat sheet with real commands and snippets for setup, core workflows, debugging, and production-safe automation patterns. If you are working across tools, pair this with the Linux Cheat Sheet and SSH Cheat Sheet.

Setup and Installation

Goal: Verify installation and CLI metadata

# Resolve command path from current shell
command -v ansible

# Print installed version to confirm runtime
ansible --version

# Read top-level help before using subcommands
ansible --help

Goal: Install or upgrade the tool on a workstation

# Install package with Homebrew on macOS
brew install ansible

# Upgrade to the latest available package
brew upgrade ansible

# Re-check version after upgrade
ansible --version

Goal: Run day-to-day commands

# Check inventory hosts are reachable
ansible all -i inventory.ini -m ping

# Run ad-hoc command across group
ansible web -i inventory.ini -m shell -a "uptime"

# Run playbook against inventory
ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini site.yml

# Dry-run playbook changes
ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini site.yml --check --diff

Core Workflows

Goal: Capture command help for quick offline lookup

# Create docs folder for generated command references
mkdir -p docs/cli

# Write help output to a timestamped file
ansible --help > docs/cli/ansible-help.txt

# Search help output for a keyword
rg "config|auth|deploy" docs/cli/ansible-help.txt

Goal: Wrap repetitive commands in a script

# Create scripts directory for local automation
mkdir -p scripts

# Write repeatable health-check script
cat > scripts/check-ansible.sh <<'SH'
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
ansible --version
ansible --help >/dev/null
SH

# Make script executable and run it
chmod +x scripts/check-ansible.sh && ./scripts/check-ansible.sh

Configuration and Environment

Goal: Pin environment variables for predictable runs

# Define environment profile for local commands
export ANSIBLE_PROFILE=dev

# Persist profile in local shell configuration
echo 'export ANSIBLE_PROFILE=dev' >> ~/.zshrc

# Reload shell profile changes
source ~/.zshrc

Automation and CI

Goal: Add tool checks to CI pipeline

# Run lint/test/build in strict mode
set -euo pipefail

# Verify CLI exists before invoking workflow
command -v ansible

# Exit quickly if command is unavailable
ansible --version

Debugging and Troubleshooting

Goal: Collect diagnostics when commands fail

# Capture command output and exit code
ansible --help > /tmp/ansible-debug.log 2>&1; echo $?

# Inspect captured diagnostics
tail -n 80 /tmp/ansible-debug.log

# Check current shell PATH entries
echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'

Common Gotchas

• Pin Ansible versions in CI so local and pipeline behavior match.
• Check tool authentication context before running write or deploy commands.
• Prefer non-interactive flags in scripts to avoid stalled jobs.
• Capture stderr logs in CI artifacts for faster incident triage.
• Keep secrets in environment variables, not committed scripts.

Related Sheets

• Linux Cheat Sheet — filesystem, process, and service troubleshooting.
• SSH Cheat Sheet — daily SSH commands and production-ready examples.
• Terraform Cheat Sheet — infrastructure as code planning and apply flows.