Question: How to Use the Repository for Managing Multiple Clusters Across Multiple Environments?

[chobostar]

I’ve reviewed the previous discussion on reusability (#272 ), and I would like to clarify something regarding the use of this repository for deploying and maintaining multiple PostgreSQL clusters in different environments .

Specifically, my task involves managing multiple clusters (e.g., clusterA, clusterB) across different environments (e.g., staging, production). However, I noticed the playbook uses include_vars to load a single variable file:
https://github.com/vitabaks/autobase/blob/2.1.0/automation/deploy_pgcluster.yml#L35-L38:

  pre_tasks:
    - name: Include main variables
      ansible.builtin.include_vars: "vars/main.yml"
      tags: always

This approach gives the included variables the highest precedence (beside extra vars), making them hard to override. As a result, it seems like the repository is designed to manage a single cluster and environment at a time.

For example, if group_vars were used instead, the repository could support flexibility for managing different clusters and environments, allowing commands like:

ansible-playbook -i environments/staging deploy_pgcluster.yml --limit clusterA
ansible-playbook -i environments/production deploy_pgcluster.yml --limit clusterB

This would make it easier to define and reuse specific variables per cluster and/or environment.

Question:
What is the intended method for using this repository to manage multiple clusters across different environments? Are there any best practices or recommendations for achieving this type of setup?

UPD.
Here #841 (comment)
it was mentioned that configurations in Autobase are managed using extra-vars:

using --extra-vars, which is exactly how we manage configurations in Autobase

Could someone provide an example of this?

[vitabaks]

yes, use extra-vars to define a directory with cluster-specific variables. Here is an example of one of the CI:

      ansible-playbook $PLAYBOOK \
        --private-key ./ansible_ssh_key \
        --inventory $CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/inventory \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/main.yml" \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/Debian.yml" \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/system.yml" \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/update.yml" \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/upgrade.yml" \
        --extra-vars "@$CI_PROJECT_DIR/$ENV/vars/secrets.yml" \
        --extra-vars "mask_password=true" \
        --vault-password-file ./vault_pass \
        --tags $TAG

Details here: https://autobase.tech/docs/management/gitops#extended-ci-pipeline

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