Stage 4 · Provision

Testing, AWX & CI/CD

ansible-lint & yamllint

Catching anti-patterns and enforcing style in CI.

6 min readAnsible AutomationProvision

Why Lint Ansible?

Linting catches anti-patterns, style issues, and potential bugs before they reach production. ansible-lint checks for best practices, deprecated modules, and common mistakes. yamllint validates YAML syntax and formatting.

ansible-lint

Running ansible-lint


# Lint current directory
ansible-lint

# Lint specific playbook
ansible-lint site.yml

# Lint with specific rules
ansible-lint -R rules/ -r rules/ site.yml

# Output in parseable format
ansible-lint -f json site.yml

# Skip specific rules
ansible-lint --skip-rule yaml[line-length] site.yml

ansible-lint checks playbooks, roles, and molecule scenarios for common issues. Fix warnings before they become problems.

Common ansible-lint findings


# BAD: name is missing
- package:
    name: nginx
    state: present

# GOOD: name is present
- name: Install nginx
  ansible.builtin.package:
    name: nginx
    state: present

# BAD: using shell for package management
- shell: apt-get install -y nginx

# GOOD: using declarative module
- name: Install nginx
  ansible.builtin.package:
    name: nginx
    state: present

ansible-lint flags missing names, shell usage instead of modules, and deprecated patterns. Each finding includes the rule that triggered it.

yamllint

Running yamllint


# Lint a file
yamllint site.yml

# Lint with strict mode
yamllint -s site.yml

# Lint entire directory
yamllint -s .

yamllint catches indentation errors, line length violations, and YAML syntax issues that ansible-lint may miss.

Lint Configuration

.ansible-lint


---
# Skip rules
skip_list:
  - yaml[line-length]
  - no-changed-when

# Warn on these (do not fail)
warn_list:
  - experimental
  - yaml[truthy]

# Enable offline mode for CI
offline: false

# Mock module results for CI
mock_modules:
  - amazon.aws.ec2
  - community.docker.docker_container

Configure lint rules in .ansible-lint at the project root. Custom rules let you enforce your team's specific standards.

.yamllint


---
extends: default

rules:
  line-length:
    max: 200
    level: warning
  truthy:
    allowed-values: ['true', 'false', 'yes', 'no']
  comments:
    min-spaces-from-content: 1
  indentation:
    spaces: 2
    indent-sequences: true

yamllint configuration controls YAML formatting rules. Match your team's conventions and enforce them consistently.

CI Integration

GitHub Actions lint step


name: Ansible Lint
on: [push, pull_request]
jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: "3.11"
      - run: pip install ansible-lint yamllint
      - run: yamllint -s .
      - run: ansible-lint

Run linting on every push and pull request. Lint failures should block merges to main.

Fix lint incrementally

If your codebase has many lint findings, fix them in batches. Use skip_list to suppress known issues temporarily, then remove them as you fix each one.

Mark this lesson complete to store local progress and unlock a cleaner resume path the next time you visit.