ansible-module-init script

[jctanner]

Proposal:

Author: James Tanner @jctanner IRC: jtanner

Date: 2017/01/26

• Status: New
• Proposal type: new script
• Targeted Release: future ...
• Associated PR: N/A
• Estimated time to implement: 1 week

Motivation

Developers will typically copy an existing module or read through the dev guids to piece together their first module. I want to make it easier and more approachable to get a basic noop module created, via a simple script.

Problems

What problems exist that this proposal will solve?

• Less reliance on written prose
• Old modules may not be what we want people to copy for new modules
• New devs might find module development difficult to start on.
• Linux devs might not have a clue where to start on windows modules, but this could narrow the gap.

Solution proposal

$ ansible-module init foobar
 .. creating libary/foobar.py
$ ansible localhost -m foobar

Dependencies (optional)

Testing (optional)

Documentation (optional)

Anything else?

[gundalow]

I love this

Some initial thoughts

• Docs need to come first

Different classes of modules

• Linux (.py
• Windows (.py and .ps1)

Extends (future)
Knowing if the module extends ec2, etc would allow us to put in boiler plate stuff for

• extends_docs_fragment
• BOTO check
• argument_spec = ec2_argument_spec

[dagwieers]

I would rather pick a (real) reference module for each class of examples (e.g. Unix, Windows, network, ...) and then make sure that module is the first one that gets update/documented if new ways of working are implemented. That is what I intended with ansible/ansible#20509

The reason for this is that it's easier to see what a best practice is from real examples. Selecting a good reference module is not that easy as the module should not be too complex, but have all the different variants to parameter types, check-mode, diff-mode, warnings, etc.

But I prefer real modules over some sort of template, which often go stale or are an afterthought.

So maybe yet another ansible command is overkill (and harder for users IMO).

[gundalow]

@dagwieers I agree.
I like the idea of ansible/ansible#20509 for Windows. We (Testing Working Group) had previously agreed to use https://github.com/ansible/ansible-modules-extras/blob/devel/cloud/amazon/kinesis_stream.py for Linux
See Line 209 https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/ansible-testing-working-group Though it needs some updates.

Better docs to follow soon :)

[webknjaz]

Remark: this is probably achievable using cookiecutter, which would also allow having customizable templates...

[bcoca]

should this be moved to 'devtools' now?