ansible-review 0.13.0

# Setup

## Using pip

```
pip install ansible-review
```

## From source

```
# Install dependency https://github.com/willthames/ansible-lint
git clone https://github.com/willthames/ansible-review
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:`pwd`/ansible-review/lib
export PATH=$PATH:`pwd`/ansible-review/bin
```


# Usage

```
ansible-review reviewtarget [target2...]
```

ansible-review will review inventory files, role
files, python code (modules, plugins) and playbooks.

* The goal is that each file that changes in a
changeset should be reviewable simply by passing
those files as the arguments to ansible-review.
* Roles are slightly harder, and sub-roles are yet
harder still (currently just using `-R` to process
roles works very well, but doesn't examine the
structure of the role)
* Using `{{ playbook_dir }}` in sub roles is so far
very hard.
* This should work against various repository styles
- per-role repository
- roles with sub-roles
- per-playbook repository
* It should work with rolesfiles and with local roles.

## Typical approaches

* `git ls-files | xargs ansible-review` works well in
a roles repo to review the whole role. But it will
review the whole of other repos too.
* `git diff branch_to_compare | ansible-review` will
review only the changes between the branches and
surrounding context.


# Reviews

Reviews are nothing without some standards or checklists
against which to review.

ansible-review comes with a couple of built-in checks, such as
a playbook syntax checker and a hook to ansible-lint. You define your
own standards.

## Configuration

If your standards (and optionally inhouse lint rules) are set up, create
a configuration file in the appropriate location (this will depend on
your operating system)

The location can be found by using `ansible-review` with no arguments.

You can override the configuration file location with the `-c` flag.

```
[rules]
lint = /path/to/your/ansible/lint/rules
standards = /path/to/your/standards/rules
```

The standards directory can be overridden with the `-d` argument,
and the lint rules directory can be overriden with the `-r` argument.


## Standards file

A standards file comprises a list of standards, and optionally some methods to
check those standards.

Create a file called standards.py (this can import other modules)

```
from ansiblereview include Standard, Result

use_modules_instead_of_command = Standard(dict(
name = "Use modules instead of commands",
version = "0.2",
check = ansiblelint('ANSIBLE0005,ANSIBLE0006'),
types = ['playbook', 'task'],
))

standards = [
use_modules_instead_of_command,
packages_should_not_be_latest,
]
```

When you add new standards, you should increment the version of your standards.
Your playbooks and roles should declare what version of standards you are
using, otherwise ansible-review assumes you're using the latest.

To add standards that are advisory, don't set the version. These will cause
a message to be displayed but won't constitute a failure.

An example standards file is available in
[examples/standards.py](examples/standards.py)

If you only want to check one or two standards quickly (perhaps you want
to review your entire code base for deprecated bare words), you can use the
`-s` flag with the name of your standard. You can pass `-s` multiple times.

```
git ls-files | xargs ansible-review -s "bare words are deprecated for with_items"
```

you can see the name of the standards being checked for each different file by running
`ansible-review` with the `-v` option.


## Standards checks

A typical standards check will look like:

```
def check_playbook_for_something(candidate, settings):
result = Result(candidate.path) # empty result is a success with no output
with open(candidate.path, 'r') as f:
for (lineno, line) in enumerate(f):
if line is dodgy:
# enumerate is 0-based so add 1 to lineno
result.errors.append(Error(lineno+1, "Line is dodgy: reasons"))
return result
```

All standards check take a candidate object, which has a path attribute.
The type can be inferred from the class name (i.e. `type(candidate).__name__`)

They return a `Result` object, which contains a possibly empty list of `Error`
objects. `Error` objects are formed of a line number and a message. If the
error applies to the whole file being reviewed, set the line number to `None`.
Line numbers are important as `ansible-review` can review just ranges of files
to only review changes (e.g. through piping the output of `git diff` to
`ansible-review`)

The ansiblelint check is ready out of the box, and just takes a list of
IDs or tags to check. You can point to your own ansible-lint rules
using the configuration file or `-d /path/to/ansible/lint/rules`