# Which variation of YAML does ansible use?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [January 18, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250 "2016-01-18T11:40:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mcv21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@mcv21](https://forum.ansible.com/u/mcv21)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250/1 "2016-01-18T11:40:32Z")

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Hi,

There are a number of different versions of YAML (1.0,1.1,1.2), and  
within these versions choices that can be made about which tags to  
include and so on.

Is the dialect of YAML that ansible uses defined anywhere? This isn't  
just pedantry, it does make a difference (e.g. to which strings are  
interpreted as booleans)...

Thanks,

Matthew

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**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:** [January 18, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250/2 "2016-01-18T14:18:54Z")

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Ansible uses pyyaml as its YAML parser. Per the pyyaml docs it is YAML 1.1. See [http://pyyaml.org](http://pyyaml.org)

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**Author:** ![mcv21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@mcv21](https://forum.ansible.com/u/mcv21)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250/3 "2016-01-18T15:52:26Z")

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Hi,

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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:** [January 18, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/which-variation-of-yaml-does-ansible-use/20250/4 "2016-01-18T15:54:48Z")

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Currently ansible states pyyaml as a requirement w/o specifying  
version, unless some incompatibility appears that will continue to be  
the case.