Overview — workflow
* Create a working directory and inventory
* Configure ansible.cfg
* Use Claude Code to generate site.yml (the playbook)
* Validate and refactor the playbook (use FQCNs, add template, lineinfile, handlers)
* Run ansible-lint / validate
* Execute the playbook and verify the result
For quick reference, here’s the workflow in a compact table:
| Step | Action | Why |
| ---- | -------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| 1 | Create workspace + inventory | Tell Ansible which hosts to manage |
| 2 | Configure ansible.cfg | Ensure consistent behaviour and privilege escalation |
| 3 | Generate site.yml via Claude Code | Quickly scaffold a working playbook |
| 4 | Refactor (FQCNs, template, lineinfile) | Improve clarity, maintainability, and idempotence |
| 5 | Lint/validate | Catch issues early with ansible-lint |
| 6 | Run playbook and verify | Confirm the web server is configured correctly |
Preparation — create the control-node workspace
Run these commands in your Claude Code workspace to create a working directory and files:
```bash theme={null}
student@control:~/claude$ pwd
/home/student/claude
student@control:~/claude$ vim inventory
student@control:~/claude$ vim ansible.cfg
student@control:~/claude$ claude
```
Example inventory (inventory)
```ini theme={null}
[webservers]
servera
```
Example ansible.cfg
```ini theme={null}
[defaults]
inventory = inventory
[privilege_escalation]
become = true
become_user = root
become_method = sudo
become_ask_pass = false
```
Generate an initial playbook with Claude Code
Start an interactive Claude Code session and ask it to create a playbook named site.yml that installs httpd on hosts in the webservers group (RHEL-based systems). Example CLI snippet:
```bash theme={null}
student@control:~/claude$ claude
Claude Code v2.0.37
Welcome back andrei!
/home/student/claude
> Create an ansible playbook file called site.yml which installs httpd on the group of hosts called webservers which are RHEL-based systems.
```
Claude Code will typically generate a simple playbook like this. Open site.yml in your editor to inspect it.
Initial generated site.yml
```yaml theme={null}
---
- name: Install and configure httpd on webservers
hosts: webservers
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Install httpd package
yum:
name: httpd
state: present
- name: Start and enable httpd service
service:
name: httpd
state: started
enabled: yes
```
Refactor to use Fully Qualified Collection Names (FQCNs)
Best practice: use FQCNs such as ansible.builtin.yum and ansible.builtin.service to avoid ambiguity and ensure the intended module is executed. Ask Claude Code to refactor the playbook to FQCNs or update it yourself.
site.yml with FQCNs
```yaml theme={null}
---
- name: Install and configure httpd on webservers
hosts: webservers
become: yes
tasks:
- name: Install httpd package
ansible.builtin.yum:
name: httpd
state: present
- name: Start and enable httpd service
ansible.builtin.service:
name: httpd
state: started
enabled: yes
```
Add a Jinja2 template to serve host facts
Create a template that renders host-specific facts (hostname and fqdn) to /var/www/html/index.html. Example template (index.html.j2):
index.html.j2
```html theme={null}
This page is served from host: {{ ansible_fqdn }}
``` Deploy the template and use lineinfile for attribution Rather than embedding the attribution directly into the template, demonstrate combining modules: deploy the template using ansible.builtin.template, then add an attribution line using ansible.builtin.lineinfile. Notify a handler to reload httpd when the file changes. Tasks to add ```yaml theme={null} - name: Deploy index.html from template ansible.builtin.template: src: index.html.j2 dest: /var/www/html/index.html owner: root group: root mode: '0644' notify: Reload httpd - name: Add attribution line to index.html ansible.builtin.lineinfile: path: /var/www/html/index.html line: "This was created by ansible and claude" insertbefore: 'This page is served from host: servera
This was created by ansible and claude