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Ansible Support

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Harness Infrastructure as Code Management (IaCM) integrates with Ansible so you can define your target machines (inventories) and apply automation tasks (playbooks) as part of your CI/CD pipelines.

  • Inventories define where your automation runs.
  • Playbooks define what automation is applied.

Inventories​

An inventory defines the machines and groups that your playbooks will target.

Create a new inventory​

  1. In the IaCM module, navigate to Inventories and click New Inventory.
  2. Name your inventory and select either Static or Dynamic.
    • Static inventories let you provide a list of host addresses directly in the UI.
    • Dynamic inventories automatically populate hosts from your Terraform/OpenTofu configuration in the selected workspace.

Configure inventory​

Add groups and hosts

From the new inventory page, you can create inventory groups, add hosts, and variables and review activity history such as executions. There is no specific order to add groups and hosts, as you can add hosts to groups and groups to hosts at any time.

In the Hosts tab:

  • Add Group → Name the group and assign hosts.
  • Add Host → Enter host address, assign to one or more groups.

In the Variables tab:

  • Add Variable → Enter variable type (string/secret), key, and value.

In the Activity History tab:

  • View activity history, such as executions.

Example inventories​

Static inventory example​

When you create a static inventory in the UI, you manually enter host addresses.

Example hosts list:

  • web1.example.com
  • db1.example.com

The resulting inventory groups and hosts are visible in the Hosts tab.

Playbooks​

A playbook describes the automation tasks to apply to your inventory.

Example playbook​

- name: Configure web server infrastructure
  hosts: webservers
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Ensure firewall is installed
      apt:
        name: ufw
        state: present

    - name: Allow HTTP traffic
      ufw:
        rule: allow
        port: '80'
        proto: tcp

    - name: Ensure firewall is enabled
      ufw:
        state: enabled

Pipeline integration​

Harness pipelines connect inventories and playbooks so you can run automation as part of your CI/CD workflows.

Example pipeline:​

- stage:
        name: Ansible
        identifier: Ansible
        description: ""
        type: IACM
        spec:
          infrastructure:
            type: KubernetesDirect
            spec:
              connectorRef: account.k8connector
              namespace: harness-delegate
              volumes: []
              annotations: {}
              labels: {}
              automountServiceAccountToken: true
              nodeSelector: {}
              containerSecurityContext:
                capabilities:
                  drop: []
                  add: []
              os: Linux
              hostNames: []
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: IACMAnsiblePlugin
                  name: Run
                  identifier: Run
                  spec:
                    command: run
                    imagePullPolicy: Always
                    image: <account-id>/ansible:ansibleSSHTest26
                    timeout: 1h
                  timeout: 1h
          playbooks:
            - test-playbook
          inventories:
            - test-inventory
        tags: {}

How it works:​

  • The pipeline uses the iacm-ansible-inventory inventory.
  • It runs the infrastructure.yml playbook from your Git repo.
  • Output is captured in the pipeline logs for traceability.

Troubleshooting​

If you don’t see the expected results, try these quick checks:

  • Hosts missing from dynamic inventory: Verify your workspace has been refreshed and that filter criteria match the attributes in your Terraform/OpenTofu configuration.
  • Playbook variables not resolving: Check the host variables in the Variables tab and confirm the names you reference in your playbook match exactly.
  • Playbook not found in pipeline: Ensure the repository, branch, and path are correct and that your connector has valid access.
  • Connection issues with hosts: Confirm that credentials and network access (for example, SSH keys and security groups) are properly configured.

Summary​

Next steps​