# How to have ansible collection installed in the "edit mode"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Developer\ **Tags:** galaxy-ng\ **Created:** [February 22, 2023, 6:58pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688 "2023-02-22T18:58:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 6:58pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/1 "2023-02-22T18:58:18Z")
Hi all, I am developing a collection following the dir layout as prescribed by the skeleton. I have the following 2 questions re dev workflows 1. How do you install the collection that you’re developing in the “edit mode”, like with pip you do `pip install -e`, and then you can do changes to the modules on-the-fly and they will be picked up. What is the alternative to that process with galaxy collection? Should I always do a `galaxy collection install ...` and then run my playbooks every time I touch the contents of my collection? 2. When developing modules inside the collection people reference funcs/methods from inside the very same collection, example - [https://github.com/ansible-collections/arista.eos/blob/main/plugins/modules/eos\_config.py#L319](https://github.com/ansible-collections/arista.eos/blob/main/plugins/modules/eos_config.py#L319) How does this path get resolved? Who adds ansible\_collection to the PYTHONPATH? How do I make my python IDE to resolve that path during the developments Thank you, and appreciate your comments. ---
**Author:** ![sivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/sivel/32/1198_2.png) [@sivel](https://forum.ansible.com/u/sivel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/2 "2023-02-22T19:56:47Z")
1. You just use normal `git` or whatever your version control system is: cd ~/.ansible/collections/ansible\_collections rm -rf amazon/aws mkdir -p amazon cd amazon git clone [https://github.com/ansible-collections/amazon.aws.git](https://github.com/ansible-collections/amazon.aws.git) aws 1. I don’t know about IDEs, but the PYTHONPATH for those is managed by ansible during runtime effectively. But basically, for the example above: PYTHONPATH=~/.ansible/collections/. You can use `ansible-config dump | grep COLLECTIONS_PATHS` to see the default paths used. ---
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:09pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/3 "2023-02-22T20:09:28Z")
Thanks Matt, Q1 was not about vcs, maybe I poorly explained the problem. I was wondering how to make a collection source to be picked up by the playbooks **without** installing collection with galaxy-install. I found only one way of doing it: tuning collections\_path, but the problem is that this cfg item expects a strict folder structure. e.g. it needs to point to a dir D that has X/Y subdirs, where X is the namespace of the collection and Y is the collection name. Clearly, this messes up with whatever dir structure you have on your dev machine. So if you started your project in dir structure such as ~/E/F, then you can’t use collections\_path. ---
**Author:** ![sivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/sivel/32/1198_2.png) [@sivel](https://forum.ansible.com/u/sivel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/4 "2023-02-22T20:17:10Z")
Not positive I understand, but if you want to use some arbitrary directory, it must be in a path that matches `collections/ansible_collections//` But my instructions still stand, regardless of using a vcs, they show how to put a collection in place without use of ansible-galaxy. You just need to drop the collection in a path that ansible is configured to look for, and it must be structured as I mentioned above. You can configure the paths that ansible looks using [https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/devel/reference\_appendices/config.html#collections-paths](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-core/devel/reference_appendices/config.html#collections-paths) ---
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:25pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/5 "2023-02-22T20:25:44Z")
Yes, clear, thanks Matt. it just felt wrong to me - imposing a predefined dir structure to import a collection from an arbitrary path. I tried symlinked dir, but didn’t work either :D. Nevertheless, appreciate your comments, I will likely resort to using `galaxy-install` as a step before running any playbooks during the dev time. I was just feeling that I miss something obvious, but seems that I do not. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/6 "2023-02-22T20:45:58Z")
symlinks do work, but you still need an ansible\_collections/ dir before your collection ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/7 "2023-02-22T20:46:31Z")
ls -l ~/.ansible/collections/ansible\_collections/ total 20 lrwxrwxrwx 1 bcoca bcoca 54 Oct 7 2021 bcoca -\> /home/bcoca/work/collections/ansible\_collections/bcoca ---
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/8 "2023-02-22T20:59:32Z")
As for the 2nd question the only workaround I found is to use relative imports, which I want to get rid of. Let me give you an example. In my collection dir I have the plugins subdir that has: plugins ├── httpapi │ └── sr.py ├── module\_utils │ └── sr.py └── modules └── get.py In my get.py I have to import a class from module\_utils, and the full import path looks like from ansible\_collections...plugins.module\_utils.srlinux import MyClass How do I make my python instance to resolve this path? I understand that at runtime ansible does add collections dir to the PYTHONPATH (or something of sorts), but without running ansible, how do i make my dev environment to resolve this path? Thank you all for your help and valuable inputs. PS. I can solve this with a relative path like from …[module\_utils.sr](http://module_utils.sr) import MyClass but I would like to not use relative imports if possible. ---
**Author:** ![sivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/sivel/32/1198_2.png) [@sivel](https://forum.ansible.com/u/sivel)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 9:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/9 "2023-02-22T21:04:08Z")
As mentioned, you need to set `PYTHONPATH` in your IDE to the directory containing `ansible_collections`. Like: `PYTHONPATH=~/.ansible/collections`. I don’t use a fancy IDE, so I don’t have any direct guidance on where you would need to set this. Maybe the IDE doesn’t respect this environment variable, or has other ways to configure it. Effectively, the `ansible_collections/` directory is similar to a Python namespace package, and the `collections/` directory is similar to `site-packages` used by python. So you just need to point `PYTHONPATH` or whatever else your IDE may use to all collections paths that ansible is configured to consult. I mentioned this in my original reply. ---
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/10 "2023-02-22T21:10:39Z")
Yes, this is clear, but then it will point to the “installed” collection. Unless developing directly in the ~/.ansible/collections or using symlinks like Brian mentioned above, this won’t use the files from my dev directory. I was looking for a way to make my local files in a dir that doesn’t belong to ~/.ansible/collections or any other dir structure that I can use in a collections\_path appear in dir that will resolve. Will move my dev dir to a predefined structure otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Roman\_Dodin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/roman_dodin/32/7150_2.png) [@Roman\_Dodin](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Roman_Dodin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2023, 9:40am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-have-ansible-collection-installed-in-the-edit-mode/37688/11 "2023-02-23T09:40:27Z")
I think I solved these two questions, thanks to Brian’s comment on symlinks and general guidance by Matt. Appreciate. TLDR: I wanted to have an ansible collection dir to be located anywhere, not following a particular dir structure, and satisfy the following requirements: 1. ansible-playbook should load the collection that is under development without doing galaxy-install. Similar to `pip install -e` mode. 2. Internal Import paths in my collection should use the full paths and resolve by the IDE. To do that, I did the following: 1. create an ansible skeleton dir at ~/somedir/collection 2. create a temp dir that satisfies the collection’s path structure: mkdir -p /tmp/somedir 3. create a symlink to the path where you develop the collection: ln -s “$(pwd)” /tmp/somedir/ansible\_collections//\ 4. Put in ansible.cfg the following [defaults] collections\_paths = /tmp/somedir 4. this will make ansible to use the collection without requiring an installation step 1. To make python import paths resolve, I created an .env file in the collection’s root dir stating PYTHONPATH=/tmp/somedir 1. This will make the python interpreter pick up import paths like: from ansible\_collections..\