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Volume 5: Developing Modules, Plugins & Contributing

Volume status

This volume is at the outline stage. Each chapter below has its structure and scope defined; full prose is being written chapter by chapter after Volumes 1-4.

Who This Volume Is For

Python developers and advanced automation engineers who want to extend Ansible rather than just consume it — writing custom modules or plugins for internal use, or contributing to ansible-core and community collections upstream.

Prerequisites

Volume 3: Core Internals & Python Architecture — module and plugin development only makes sense once the execution engine, module loader, and connection plugin architecture are understood.

Chapters

  1. Module Architecture — how modules are written, the Python API, arguments, return values, check mode, diff mode, and writing one from scratch
  2. Plugin Architecture — action, lookup, filter, cache, connection, strategy, inventory, vars, and callback plugins, and writing custom ones
  3. Testing Ansible Content — ansible-test, Molecule, pytest, sanity/integration/unit tests, and CI/CD
  4. Development Toolkit — VS Code, dev containers, ansible-lint, yamllint, pre-commit, black, ruff, tox, and the language server
  5. Contributing to Ansible — developer setup, running tests, building docs, submitting PRs, and coding standards

What You Will Be Able to Do After This Volume

  • Write a custom Ansible module that correctly supports check mode, diff mode, and idempotency
  • Write a custom plugin (filter, lookup, or callback) to extend Ansible's behavior for your team's needs
  • Set up a real testing pipeline for Ansible content, from ansible-lint through Molecule to CI
  • Submit a well-formed pull request to ansible-core or a community collection

Next

Continue to Volume 6: Production Best Practices, Performance & Troubleshooting.