ansible-specdoc

A utility for dynamically generating documentation from an Ansible module's spec.

This project was primarily designed for the Linode Ansible Collection.

An example Ansible Collection using ansible-specdoc can be found here.

Usage

ansible-specdoc [-h] [-s] [-n MODULE_NAME] [-i INPUT_FILE] [-o OUTPUT_FILE] [-f {yaml,json,jinja2}] [-j] [-t TEMPLATE_FILE]

Generate Ansible Module documentation from spec.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s, --stdin           Read the module from stdin.
  -n MODULE_NAME, --module-name MODULE_NAME
                        The name of the module (required for stdin)
  -i INPUT_FILE, --input_file INPUT_FILE
                        The module to generate documentation from.
  -o OUTPUT_FILE, --output_file OUTPUT_FILE
                        The file to output the documentation to.
  -f {yaml,json,jinja2}, --output_format {yaml,json,jinja2}
                        The output format of the documentation.
  -j, --inject          Inject the output documentation into the `DOCUMENTATION`, `RETURN`, and `EXAMPLES` fields of input module.
  -t TEMPLATE_FILE, --template_file TEMPLATE_FILE
                        The file to use as the template for templated formats.

---

Generating a templated documentation file:

ansible-specdoc -f jinja2 -t path/to/my/template.md.j2 -i path/to/my/module.py -o path/to/output/file.md

---

Dynamically generating and injecting documentation back into module constants:

ansible-specdoc -j -i path/to/my/module.py

NOTE: Documentation string injection requires that you have DOCUMENTATION, RETURN, and EXAMPLES constants defined in your module.

---

Generating a raw documentation string (not recommended):

ansible-specdoc -f yaml -i path/to/my/module.py

Implementation

Importing SpecDoc Classes

All of the ansible-specdoc classes can be imported into an Ansible module using the following statement:

from ansible_specdoc.objects import *

Alternatively, only specific classes can be imported using the following statement:

from ansible_specdoc.objects import SpecDocMeta, SpecField, SpecReturnValue, FieldType, DeprecationInfo

Declaring Module Metadata

The ansible-specdoc specification format requires that each module exports a SPECDOC_META object with the following structure:

SPECDOC_META = SpecDocMeta(
    description=['Module Description'],
    requirements=['python >= 3.6'],
    author=['Author Name'],
    options=module_spec,
    examples=[
        'example module usage'
    ],
    return_values={
        'my_return_value': SpecReturnValue(
            description='A generic return value.',
            type=FieldType.string,
            sample=['sample response']
        ),
    }
)

Declaring Argument Specification

Each SpecField object translates to a parameter that can be rendered into documentation and passed into Ansible for specification. These fields should be declared in a dict format as shown below:

module_spec = {
    'example_argument': SpecField(
        type=FieldType.string,
        required=True,
        description=['An example argument.']
    )
}

This dict should be passed into the options field of the SPECDOC_META declaration.

Passing Specification to Ansible

In order to retrieve the Ansible-compatible spec dict, use the SPECDOC_META.ansible_spec property.

Other Notes

To prevent ansible-specdoc from executing module code, please ensure that all module logic executes using the following pattern:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

---

To deprecate a module, specify the deprecated field as follows:

SPECDOC_META = SpecDocMeta(
    ...
    deprecated=DeprecationInfo(
        alternative='my.new.module',
        removed_in='1.0.0',
        why='Reason for deprecation'
    )
)

When deprecating a module, you will also need to update your meta/runtime.yml file. Please refer to the official Ansible deprecation documentation for more details.

Templates

This repository provides an example Markdown template that can be used in conjunction with the -t argument.