# Parse error

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/parse-error/20914>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [March 18, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parse-error/20914 "2016-03-18T09:18:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chinky\_gupta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@chinky\_gupta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/chinky_gupta)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parse-error/20914/1 "2016-03-18T09:18:15Z")

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Parse error: playbooks must be formatted as a YAML list, got \<type dict\>

What could be the reasons of such error

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**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/parse-error/20914/2 "2016-03-18T20:22:12Z")

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Your play is incorrectly formatted, should be like:

- hosts: all  
tasks:
- debug: msg=onetask