Overview

The MCP Ansible Server is a Python-based server that allows AI models to interact with Ansible's powerful automation capabilities. It exposes Ansible utilities for managing inventories, executing playbooks, and running roles, providing a safe and structured way for AI to automate infrastructure and deployments.

Created by:

Developed by bsahane

Key Features

📚

Playbook Execution

Execute Ansible playbooks to automate tasks and deployments

📦

Inventory Management

Manage and query Ansible inventories for host and group information

⚙️

Role Execution

Run Ansible roles for modular and reusable automation

✅

Syntax Validation

Validate Ansible playbook syntax before execution

Available Tools

Quick Reference

Tool	Purpose	Category
`create-playbook`	Create playbooks from YAML strings or dicts	Playbook
`validate-playbook`	Validate playbook syntax	Playbook
`ansible-playbook`	Execute playbooks	Playbook
`ansible-task`	Run ad-hoc tasks	Ad-hoc
`ansible-role`	Execute roles	Role
`ansible-inventory`	List inventory hosts and groups	Inventory

Detailed Usage

ansible-playbook▶

Execute Ansible playbooks.

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-playbook",
  arguments: {
    playbook_path: "/path/to/your/playbook.yml",
    inventory: "/path/to/your/inventory/hosts.ini"
  }
});

ansible-task▶

Run ad-hoc Ansible tasks.

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-task",
  arguments: {
    host_pattern: "localhost",
    module: "ping"
  }
});

ansible-inventory▶

List inventory hosts and groups.

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-inventory",
  arguments: {
    inventory: "/path/to/your/inventory/hosts.ini"
  }
});

Installation

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ansible": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": [
        "/path/to/mcp-ansible/src/ansible_mcp/server.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "MCP_ANSIBLE_PROJECT_ROOT": "/path/to/your/ansible/project",
        "MCP_ANSIBLE_INVENTORY": "/path/to/your/ansible/inventory/hosts.ini"
      }
    }
  }
}

Setup:

Clone the mcp-ansible repository and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/bsahane/mcp-ansible.git
cd mcp-ansible
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U pip
pip install "mcp[cli]>=1.2.0" "PyYAML>=6.0.1" "ansible-core>=2.16.0"
pip install -e .

Then, update the command and env paths in the mcpServers configuration above to match your setup.

Common Use Cases

1. Configuration Management

Automate system configuration and package management:

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-playbook",
  arguments: {
    playbook_path: "/path/to/playbooks/configure_webserver.yml",
    inventory: "/path/to/inventory/production.ini"
  }
});

2. Infrastructure Automation

Provision and manage cloud resources:

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-playbook",
  arguments: {
    playbook_path: "/path/to/playbooks/provision_vms.yml",
    inventory: "/path/to/inventory/cloud.ini",
    extra_vars: {
      cloud_provider: "aws",
      region: "us-east-1"
    }
  }
});

3. Application Deployment

Deploy applications with rolling updates:

use_mcp_tool({
  server_name: "ansible",
  tool_name: "ansible-playbook",
  arguments: {
    playbook_path: "/path/to/playbooks/deploy_app.yml",
    inventory: "/path/to/inventory/staging.ini",
    tags: "deploy,restart_service"
  }
});

Ansible MCP Server