Ansible Playbook Documentation Workflow¶

This script automates documentation for all Ansible playbooks in the repository. It enforces the presence of a # Purpose: comment, generates per‑playbook documentation under docs/playbooks/, builds folder‑level summaries inside the playbooks/ tree, and maintains a global index of all playbooks.
It is executed by the Generate Ansible Playbook Docs GitHub Action workflow.

🐍 Python Script: generate_playbook_docs.py ¶

The script performs the following steps:

1. Purpose Extraction ¶

• Function: get_playbook_purpose(playbook_path)
• Reads the playbook file line by line.
• Skips YAML document markers (---) and blank lines.
• Collects all consecutive comment lines beginning with # Purpose:.
• Supports multi‑line purpose blocks.
• Returns a single combined purpose string.
• Raises an error if the purpose block is missing.

2. Role Detection ¶

• Function: get_roles(playbook_path)
• Parses the playbook YAML using PyYAML.
• Detects roles defined via:
  • roles: (string or dict form)
  • tasks: entries using ansible.builtin.import_role
• Returns a list of role names.

3. Per‑Playbook Documentation Generation ¶

• Function: generate_playbook_markdown(playbook_path, playbooks_dir)
• Builds a Markdown document containing:
  • Title (# 📖 Playbook: <relative path>)
  • Purpose section
  • Roles applied (linked to docs/roles/<role>.md)
  • Usage example (ansible-playbook playbooks/<path>)
• Writes the generated documentation to:

docs/playbooks/<playbook>.md

• No documentation files are written inside the playbooks/ directory.

4. Global Playbook Index ¶

• In main(), all playbooks are discovered recursively using rglob("*.yml").
• Entries are grouped into:
  • Root entries — playbooks directly under playbooks/
  • Subfolder entries — playbooks inside nested directories
• A global index is generated at:

docs/playbooks/README.md

• The index contains two tables:
  • Playbooks in the root directory
  • Playbooks in subfolders (with relative paths)

5. Folder‑Level Indexes ¶

• For each subfolder under playbooks/, a README.md is generated inside that folder.
• These folder‑level indexes contain:
  • A table of playbooks in that folder
  • Links pointing to docs/playbooks/<playbook>.md
• The root playbooks/ folder is skipped to avoid overwriting the global index.

6. Single Playbook Mode ¶

If the script is run with a specific playbook path:

python scripts/generate_playbook_docs.py playbooks/infra/prepare-node.yml

• Only that playbook’s documentation is generated under docs/playbooks/.
• No global index or folder‑level indexes are updated.

📂 Example Outputs¶

Per‑Playbook Documentation (docs/playbooks/deploy-ansible.md)¶

# 📖 Playbook: deploy-ansible.yml

## 🛠 Purpose
Sets up the Ansible control node and prepares managed nodes with required roles.

## 🔗 Roles Applied
- [`global`](../roles/global.md)
- [`ansible_node`](../roles/ansible_node.md)

## 🚀 Usage
```bash
ansible-playbook playbooks/deploy-ansible.yml

---

## Folder Index (`playbooks/ansible/README.md`)

```markdown
# 📚 Playbooks in `ansible`

| Playbook | Purpose |
|----------|---------|
| [`deploy_ansible.yml`](../../docs/playbooks/deploy_ansible.md) | Prepares VMs and baremetal hosts for Ansible management |

Global Index (docs/playbooks/README.md)¶

# 📚 Playbook Index

## 📂 Playbooks in root `playbooks/`

| Playbook | Purpose |
|----------|---------|
| [`deploy-ansible.yml`](deploy-ansible.md) | Sets up the Ansible control node and prepares managed nodes |

## 📂 Playbooks in subfolders

| Playbook Path | Purpose |
|----------------|---------|
| [`infra/prepare-node.yml`](prepare-node.md) | Prepares VMs and baremetal hosts for Ansible management |
| [`security/firewall.yml`](firewall.md) | Configures firewall rules for managed nodes |

✅ Contributor Expectations¶

• Always include a # Purpose: comment at the top of each playbook.
• Keep the purpose concise but meaningful — it appears in indexes and documentation.
• Declare roles properly (roles: or import_role) so they are detected.
• Review the PR diff — updates will include:
  • Per‑playbook docs under docs/playbooks/
  • Folder‑level indexes under playbooks/
  • The global index under docs/playbooks/README.md