Ansible Configuration Management AI Skill Guide (Claude)

Overview & Engine Architecture

Ansible pushes desired state to hosts (SSH, WinRM, or cloud APIs) via playbooks and roles. Controllers assemble inventory + vars, then run modules that converge without requiring agents on targets. Production quality means idempotent modules (not raw shell), FQCN (ansible.builtin.*), pinned collections, and vaulted secrets. Treat --check --diff as a pre-flight gate; never invent vault passwords or cloud credentials.