# Writing an endless playbook strategy plugin

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [November 16, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041 "2016-11-16T13:22:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Florian\_Dambrine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f17d59/32.png) [@Florian\_Dambrine](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Florian_Dambrine)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 1:22pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041/1 "2016-11-16T13:22:32Z")

</div>

Hey everyone,

I would like to have your input on that question.

I have a really special use case where I want to run an endless playbook (on localhost only). I basically want to implement an endless loop on my playbook. As we all know, looping over a set of tasks or blocks is not possible with a statement like **while true** , which will look like:

`

### role/tasks/main.yml

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Benjamin\_Redling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/47e85d/32.png) [@Benjamin\_Redling](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Benjamin_Redling)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041/2 "2016-11-16T13:32:58Z")

</div>

> [...] I basically want to implement an endless loop on my  
> playbook.

[...]

> I can of course use a higher level command that will keep triggering my  
> playbook in a loop, but I was actually thinking about implementing a  
> \_custom strategy\_ called \*endless \*for example.

I don't understand the "but": what do you \*gain\* by implementing your  
own strategy apart from learning to implement your own custom strategy?

No (ana)cron(-alike) available?

Cheers,  
Benjamin

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Florian\_Dambrine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f17d59/32.png) [@Florian\_Dambrine](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Florian_Dambrine)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041/3 "2016-11-16T13:42:21Z")

</div>

Well in my case I wont even need a cron-alike tool… I just want to start the playbook once and keep it running all the time. Maybe something like supervisor could help me keeping that playbook running all the time.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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:** [November 16, 2016, 9:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/writing-an-endless-playbook-strategy-plugin/23041/4 "2016-11-16T21:24:57Z")

</div>

I would just setup a daemontools service or if using systemd a unit that continually restarts ansible-playbook every time it dies