# Playbook formatting question

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/playbook-formatting-question/28285>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [August 7, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/playbook-formatting-question/28285 "2018-08-07T20:30:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Syed\_Jafar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Syed\_Jafar](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Syed_Jafar)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/playbook-formatting-question/28285/1 "2018-08-07T20:30:55Z")

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Can someone please let me know what is wrong with my playbook (below) formatting. I get the following error message when I run the playbook.

ERROR! ‘copy’ is not a valid attribute for a Play

The error appears to have been in ‘/etc/ansible/playbooks/copy\_files.yml’: line 3, column 4, but may

be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

The offending line appears to be:

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2018, 8:55pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/playbook-formatting-question/28285/2 "2018-08-07T20:55:37Z")

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This is not a playbook it's task.

A minimum required reading is  
[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.6/user\_guide/playbooks\_intro.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.6/user_guide/playbooks_intro.html)

Preferably you should read the whole user guide  
[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.6/user\_guide/index.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.6/user_guide/index.html)