ansible-navigator-config

Ansible Navigator Configuration Skill

Configure ansible-navigator for optimal workflow, execution environment integration, log management, and troubleshooting.

What is ansible-navigator?

ansible-navigator is a text-based user interface (TUI) for Ansible that provides:

• Interactive playbook execution with real-time exploration
• Execution environment integration for containerized runs
• Log replay and analysis
• Collection/inventory browsing
• Enhanced debugging capabilities
• Artifact generation for CI/CD integration

Key Benefits:

• Consistent runtime environments (via EEs)
• Better visibility into playbook execution
• Improved troubleshooting workflow
• CI/CD friendly (stdout mode)
• Log replay for post-execution analysis

Installation

# Install ansible-navigator
pip install ansible-navigator

# Verify installation
ansible-navigator --version

# Optional: Install execution environment support
pip install ansible-builder

# Container runtime (one of these)
# Podman (recommended)
sudo dnf install podman

# Or Docker
sudo apt-get install docker.io

Configuration File: ansible-navigator.yml

Place in project root or home directory (~/.ansible-navigator.yml).

Basic Configuration

---
ansible-navigator:
  # Execution environment settings
  execution-environment:
    enabled: true
    image: quay.io/ansible/creator-ee:latest
    pull:
      policy: missing  # missing, always, never, tag
    container-engine: podman  # podman or docker
    
  # Mode settings
  mode: interactive  # interactive or stdout
  
  # Playbook execution settings
  playbook-artifact:
    enable: true
    replay: artifacts/
    save-as: "{playbook_dir}/artifacts/{playbook_name}-artifact-{time_stamp}.json"
  
  # Logging
  logging:
    level: info  # debug, info, warning, error, critical
    append: true
    file: ansible-navigator.log
  
  # Editor for interactive mode
  editor:
    command: vim {filename}
    console: true
  
  # Inventory settings
  inventories:
    - inventory/production
    - inventory/staging