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https://github.com/hille721/ansible-variables

Keep track of Ansible host context variables
https://github.com/hille721/ansible-variables

ansible ansible-inventory ansible-variables

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Keep track of Ansible host context variables

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README 

        
# ansible-variables



[![PyPI version][pypi-version-badge]][pypi-link]

[![PyPI platforms][pypi-platforms-badge]][pypi-link]

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[![Ruff][ruff-badge]][ruff-link]



The Ansible inventory provides a very powerful framework to declare variables in a hierarchical manner.

There a lof of different places where a variable can be defined (inventory, host_vars, groups_vars, ...)

and Ansible will merge them in a specific order

([variable precedence](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_variables.html#understanding-variable-precedence)).



`ansible-variables` will help to keep track of your host context variables:



- inventory file or script group vars

- inventory group_vars/all

- inventory group_vars/\*

- inventory file or script host vars

- inventory host_vars/\*



Based on one host it will return a list with all variables, values and variable type.



Tested with `ansible-core` 2.11 - 2.17.



## Installation



```bash

pip install ansible-variables

```



## Usage



The command line usage is similar to the official Ansible CLI tools, especially like ansible-inventory,

thus to see all possible commands and options run



```plain

ansible-variables --help

```



### Get all variables for a host



The basic usage is pretty simple, you only need to pass the Ansible hostname to it:



```plain

ansible-variables mywebserver

```



This results in following simple rich formatted output

![command_simple](https://github.com/hille721/ansible-variables/raw/main/docs/img/command_simple.png)



The verbosity can be increased Ansible like with `-v`, `-vvv`, ...



With `-v` the inventory files where the variable is defined, will be printed. The last file wins.



![command_simple_verbose](https://github.com/hille721/ansible-variables/raw/main/docs/img/command_simple_verbose.png)



With `-vvv` it will also print all files which were considered to look for the variable.



### Get one specific variables for a host



If you are only interested in one variable you can specify it with `--var`:



```plain

ansible-variables mywebserver --var foo

```



Same es above, the verbosity can also increase here.



### More customization



With `--help` you will see which further arguments are possible, e.g. you can set the path to your inventory with `-i`



```plain

ansible-variables mywebserver -i /path/to/inventory

```



## Implementation



This tool is tightly coupled to the Ansible library (`ansible-core`) and simple reuses what is already there.

The whole structure and implementation was inspired and oriented by the implementation of

[`ansible-inventory`](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/cli/inventory.py).



To get the source and the inventory files in which Ansible will look for a variable,

we are using a [debug flag](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/lib/ansible/vars/manager.py#L187)

in Ansible's `get_vars` method.



As as result, the output of `ansible-variables` can be fully trusted

as it uses the same methods as Ansible to get the variable precedence.



## Limitations



- as written in the description, this tool only shows host context variables and

  does not know anything about playbook or role variables or command line options.



## Credits



- the screenshots used  in this README where created with [termshot](https://github.com/homeport/termshot)



## License



This project is licensed under the [GNU General Public License v3.0](https://github.com/hille721/ansible-variables/blob/main/LICENSE)



[pre-commit-badge]: https://img.shields.io/badge/pre--commit-enabled-brightgreen?logo=pre-commit&logoColor=white%3E

[pre-commit-link]: https://pre-commit.com/

[pypi-link]: https://pypi.org/project/ansible-variables/

[pypi-platforms-badge]: https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/ansible-variables

[pypi-version-badge]: https://badge.fury.io/py/ansible-variables.svg

[ruff-badge]: https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astral-sh/ruff/main/assets/badge/v2.json

[ruff-link]: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff