# Play includes **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [May 1, 2012, 12:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476 "2012-05-01T12:31:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 12:31pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/1 "2012-05-01T12:31:48Z")
It seems like it would be relatively easy to do this: ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Zemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@Art\_Zemon](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Art_Zemon)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/2 "2012-05-01T13:21:00Z")
Yes, please include this (pun intended)     -- Art Z. ---
**Author:** ![Seth\_Vidal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Seth\_Vidal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Seth_Vidal)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/3 "2012-05-01T20:12:01Z")
So - with this in mind - are there other global playbook idioms to setup. I'm working on puppet-replacement playbooks now for setting up some vmhosts and builder boxes and I'm noticing I'm setting up some generic items that probably most people could use. for example this is my global\_vars.yml file: ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Fromm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Stephen\_Fromm](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Stephen_Fromm)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/4 "2012-05-02T23:32:01Z")
I think it would be nice to see a best-practice documented for how to layout one’s repository. I like having the top-level directories of handlers/ and tasks/. Having a mess of files under files/ or templates/ would not work because of the potential for namespace collision. Two options that work are: files/etc/ssh/sshd\_config and files/openssh/sshd\_config. I tend to prefer the latter. It would be interesting to see other possible layouts. In the long term, I think it would be best to see a recommended layout for repositories. sf ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/5 "2012-05-02T23:36:52Z")
Suggestion – Create one and invite comments. This is how all the BP guides get created originally. – Michael ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Fromm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Stephen\_Fromm](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Stephen_Fromm)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/6 "2012-05-03T00:00:10Z")
[https://github.com/sfromm/ansible-playbooks](https://github.com/sfromm/ansible-playbooks) It is there, just not advertised. The readme should be fleshed out and the repo is a bit thin at the moment. Comments? 🙂 sf ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 12:41am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/7 "2012-05-03T00:41:42Z")
Looks good, my personal preferences are mostly cosmetic: - always include whitespace between tasks - always have a comment at the top of every file - comment non-obvious tasks where relevant - always name tasks (you do this) - I'd probably have a common.yml in tasks for all hosts in a play if there were any common tasks I don't think I have any preferences on openssh vs /etc/ssh/ as a prefix for files. It seems like a good idea to have them match the playbook on one hand, but on the other, if I had a full filesystem tree, that would be pretty awesome to visualize and jump around in. I currently have been using a seperate directory for files and templates -- on one hand it's more explicit, on the other hand, it's harder to visualize what you are putting where (similar to the above) We could also do stuff more similar to Puppet land:    openssh/tasks    openssh/files Which makes sharing easier What do people think? ---
**Author:** ![Suraj\_Gupta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Suraj\_Gupta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Suraj_Gupta)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/8 "2012-05-09T02:14:14Z")
How about the following (directories in blue). Optimized so that all files related to a specific task are in the same folder - less jumping around. Separate folders for shared resources are justified because these folders are likely to contain many more files than any specific task. - roles - webservers.yml - loadbalancer.yml- shared - files - sharedFile1.txt- templates - template1.conf- handlers - sharedHandler1.yml- tasks - openssh - openssh.yml - ssh\_config- sysctl - sysctl.yml - sysctl.conf thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Rodney\_Quillo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Rodney\_Quillo](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Rodney_Quillo)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/9 "2012-05-09T02:46:33Z")
Hi all, Same with you, I'm also looking into 'howto' structure playbooks and inputs. Here's my sample also: dev-server.yml (include nginx and mysql playbooks inside it) nginx-ubuntu.yml     - nginx/       - templates/         - nginx.j2       - vars/       - tasks/       - files/ mysql-ubuntu.yml     - mysql/       - templates/       - vars/       - tasks/       - files/ ( Note: directories ends with /) Here's my repo for my testing: [https://github.com/cocoy/ansible-playbooks/tree/master/nginx](https://github.com/cocoy/ansible-playbooks/tree/master/nginx) -Rodney ---
**Author:** ![Stephen\_Fromm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Stephen\_Fromm](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Stephen_Fromm)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/10 "2012-05-09T04:30:31Z")
> Hi all, > > Same with you, I’m also looking into ‘howto’ structure playbooks and > inputs. > Here’s my sample also: > > dev-server.yml (include nginx and mysql playbooks inside it) > nginx-ubuntu.yml > > - nginx/ > - templates/ > - nginx.j2 > - vars/ > - tasks/ > - files/ > mysql-ubuntu.yml > - mysql/ > - templates/ > - vars/ > - tasks/ > - files/ Thinking about it, I tend to like the above structure of templates/, tasks/, and what-not located under topic-specific directories (eg. ssh, mysql, etc). That would help make playbooks easier to share. This would be similar to puppet’s modules, as Michael mentioned as one possibility: > > > We could also do stuff more similar to Puppet land: > > > > > openssh/tasks > > > openssh/files > > > > > Which makes sharing easier Regards, sf ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/11 "2012-05-09T12:26:19Z")
I’m rewriting the playbooks docs this weekend, so there is likely going to be a whole page on “Playbook Best Practices”. Good timing. Taking what everyone has said so far into consideration, unless someone can tell me that this is terrible, I like this for maximum portability. It’s easy to tar up, share on the internet, cp around, etc. It also has the VERY NICE property of not just restricting us to describing running state, but also allows playbooks for what John Kleint did – having playbooks to start/stop/other things. Thus the idea that “setup.yml” is probably a common thing in a playbook, but stop.yml might be too. # subdirectories for each meaningful thing nginx/ templates/ nginx.j2 vars/ nginx.vars tasks/ setup.yml stop.yml files/ x y handlers main.yml other/ yada yada yada And plays are just lists of what gets done together, and should probably be named after what systems they target and what they do. Rather than web servers, it’s “setup\_webservers”, because we might also want something like “stop\_webservers”, etc. TBD. # file: setup\_webservers.yml - hosts: webservers.yml tasks: - include: nginx/tasks/setup.yml - include: other/tasks/setup.yml handlers: - include: nginx/handlers/main.yml Thoughts? ---
**Author:** ![Matt\_Coddington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Matt\_Coddington](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Matt_Coddington)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/12 "2012-05-09T15:30:58Z")
I like this modular setup a lot. One feature I've seen previously discussed on the list is the ability of playbooks to include other playbooks... is this something that's on the roadmap? Using the example below, I can imagine wanting to: \* on a regular basis run all of my setup.yml tasks as part of standard configuration management practice. This would be my configuration management playbook. \* on a one-off basis, i'd like to be able to run the tasks associated with nginx/tasks/setup.yml against my nginx servers because i've just made a change... i don't want to run a whole configuration management playbook because maybe it takes too long or whatever. If I could include my one-off playbooks in my configuration management playbook, i'd only have to write them once and only change them in one place if i had to include another task or address a different group or servers. I guess I'm wondering whether the basic building blocks of "doing stuff" should be at the tasks/foo.yml level, or one level higher up in the plays. matt ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/13 "2012-05-09T15:49:08Z")
It would need to wait until 0.5, but I don’t see why not. For now the way to do that is just simulate a playbook by making a top level bash script that just calls all the plays you want to run on the ansible-playbook command line, or by calling ansible-playbook more than once. ---
**Author:** ![Suraj\_Gupta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Suraj\_Gupta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Suraj_Gupta)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/14 "2012-05-09T17:14:33Z")
Hi Michael, I completely agree with the point about restricting us to describing running state and also optimizing for sharing. For completeness, it would be nice to see a recommendation on where to put plays and hosts (setup\_webservers.yml and webservers.yml in your example). I think the templates/vars/tasks/files/handlers directories are a bit overkill for the run-of-the-mill task. I suspect the average task will only use 2 or 3 of these directories and only contain 1 or 2 files. The same visual separation can be achieved with file extensions that follow a convention (i.e. tasks get .yml, vars get .vars, etc.). I’m sure the organization freaks will disagree, but I’m trying to advocate for Ansible’s mantra of simplicity. =) ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/15 "2012-05-09T17:20:29Z")
> I think the templates/vars/tasks/files/handlers directories are a bit overkill for the run-of-the-mill task. I suspect the average task will only use 2 or 3 of these directories and only contain 1 or 2 files. The same visual separation can be achieved with file extensions that follow a convention (i.e. tasks get .yml, vars get .vars, etc.). I’m sure the organization freaks will disagree, but I’m trying to advocate for Ansible’s mantra of simplicity. =) Strongly disagree about extensions, because it doesn’t allow for expansion later, and makes for two ways to do things where it will get inconsistent. Not creating subdirectories that you don’t use is of course fine. I suspect most people will use tasks, handlers, and templates. Some people will use files. Not everyone will need vars. I’m cribbing almost directly from Puppet module organization here, because I like how that works out. –Michael ---
**Author:** ![Suraj\_Gupta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Suraj\_Gupta](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Suraj_Gupta)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/16 "2012-05-09T17:46:30Z")
I don’t follow your point about “two ways to do things…”, and expansion is equivalent in both models (you either expand the convention or your expand the directories) We can agree to disagree - it seems that Ansible doesn’t impose a structure, which is great. =) How about shared files? For example, handlers or templates are re-used across nginx/other/other2/… Something to consider for the best practices doc? ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/play-includes/11476/17 "2012-05-09T17:59:30Z")
> I don’t follow your point about “two ways to do things…”, and expansion is equivalent in both models (you either expand the convention or your expand the directories) > We can agree to disagree - it seems that Ansible doesn’t impose a structure, which is great. =) Eh, perhaps correct that it’s expandable, but I still think it’s a mess. > How about shared files? For example, handlers or templates are re-used across nginx/other/other2/… Something to consider for the best practices doc? Not really, there’s nothing precluding this though.