# Help organizing project and accessing paths **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Tags:** galaxy-ng\ **Created:** [July 27, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786 "2014-07-27T14:31:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ryan\_VanGundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/439d5e/32.png) [@Ryan\_VanGundy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ryan_VanGundy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/1 "2014-07-27T14:31:45Z")
I’m working on a small Ansible project that’s a little outside its primary use-case. I’m automating the generation of new web projects in a Mac OS X dev environment. There are two objectives: 1.) Install all development tools on the local machine 2.) Compose various projects based on small component roles/tasks As a simple example, if you run the main playbook, it will prompt you for a project folder, install Sublime Text, NodeJS, etc., and set up all the basic files needed to begin working on a new project. Here’s a subset of my project folder: ` ansible-generator > - main.yml ← Main playbook > - apps > - nodejs > - tasks,vars,defaults,etc. > - sublime > - scaffolds > - git > - node > - vagrant > - install > - dmg.yml > ` Everything under both apps and scaffolds are roles. ‘apps’ install local dev tools, and ‘scaffolds’ uses templates to set up and modify new project files (package.json, Vagrantfile, .gitignore, etc.) I have a couple questions: 1.) Could this entire project be turned in to a role itself and be distributed on Ansible Galaxy, given its different project layout and different use-case? Since this is a project built using lots of small sub-roles, how could I run all those dependent roles from tasks/main.yml? 2.) The roles in the /apps folder need to reference tasks under the /install folder. Right now I have to use relative paths like “…/…/…/dmg.yml”. I’d rather set up a variable further up and just use “{{ installers }}/dmg.yml”, but without just setting this variable to “…/…/…” What’s the best way to get the absolute path to the root of this project? The playbook\_dir variable always returns “.” 3.) Any other thoughts on organizing my project? Is it reasonable to have roles in both /apps and /scaffolds or does this seem unwieldy compared to putting everything under a /roles folder? Thanks! If you’d like to take a closer look at my project you can find it here: [https://github.com/rvangundy/ansible-generator](https://github.com/rvangundy/ansible-generator) ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/2 "2014-07-27T20:54:28Z")
This may be a useful resource for organization tips: [http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks\_best\_practices.html](http://docs.ansible.com/playbooks_best_practices.html) Also, if you haven’t seen it already, the ansible-galaxy CLI can be used to quickly stub out a role with the “init” command. You may wish to read about role dependencies, however galaxy is not meant as a way to distribute top level playbooks - in practice, they are seldom reusable because nobody wants to install the exact same infrastructure (you’ve already made a lot of choices about Sublime and Node), whereas roles provide a more ideal chunk of reuse. As for your directory questions try, “{{ playbookdir }}/some\_path”. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_VanGundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/439d5e/32.png) [@Ryan\_VanGundy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ryan_VanGundy)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/3 "2014-07-27T21:45:39Z")
Thanks for the response. I’m using the following task: ` - debug: msg=“{{ playbook\_dir }}” ` With this output… `ok: [localhost] => { "msg": "." }` So it’s returning a relative path. I get this same output regardless of where I run the debug task, so this doesn’t help me point to my project root if I use the playbook\_dir variable in one of my roles or some other subdirectory. Incidentally, inventory\_dir returns an absolute path (e.g. /etc/ansible), though the inventory directory isn’t what I’m after. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/4 "2014-07-28T14:09:29Z")
What is “ansible --version” ? ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_VanGundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/439d5e/32.png) [@Ryan\_VanGundy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ryan_VanGundy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/5 "2014-07-28T19:15:21Z")
ansible 1.7 ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan1)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 7:39pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/6 "2014-07-28T19:39:47Z")
Ok - got it. Sounds like a path just needs to be os.path.abspath’d somewhere. If your 1.7 checkout is up to date, please file a github ticket so we can take a look. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_VanGundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/439d5e/32.png) [@Ryan\_VanGundy](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Ryan_VanGundy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 10:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/help-organizing-project-and-accessing-paths/15786/7 "2014-07-28T22:11:05Z")
Done. [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/8317](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/8317)