---
id: ansible-lint
version: "26.8.0"
license: GPL-3.0-or-later
license_treatment: copyleft
maintenance: active
---

# ansible-lint — Checks playbooks for practices and behavior that could potentially be improved

License: copyleft · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 5.3M/mo

## What it is and what it does

ansible-lint is a static analysis tool that scans Ansible playbooks and related automation code to identify practices that deviate from community standards or could cause issues in production. It runs as a command-line tool and integrates into CI/CD pipelines, including GitHub Actions. The package depends on ansible-core for Ansible compatibility, yamllint for YAML validation, and several supporting libraries for schema checking, YAML parsing, and file matching.

The tool is maintained as part of the official Ansible project and supports only the last two major versions of Ansible. It's designed for developers, system administrators, and infrastructure teams who want automated feedback on their Ansible code quality before deployment.

Use it for:

- Run in CI/CD pipelines to automatically check playbooks on pull requests before merging.
- Enforce Ansible best practices across a team by catching common mistakes early.
- Validate playbook syntax and structure locally before committing to version control.
- Integrate into GitHub Actions workflows to gate deployments on code quality.
- Audit existing playbooks for compliance with organizational Ansible standards.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

ansible-lint checks Ansible playbooks and roles for practices that could be improved, flagging issues before deployment.

Yes. ansible-lint is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and low install friction. The GPLv3 copyleft license is a consideration if you're building proprietary software, but it's the standard for Ansible tooling. Install it if you use Ansible and want automated quality checks on your playbooks.

## Install

pip install ansible-lint
uv add ansible-lint
poetry add ansible-lint

## Installing ansible-lint

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel distribution. Active maintenance with a release 2 days old and 3896 repository stars. Requires Python 3.10 or later.

License in practice: Distributed under GPL-3.0-or-later due to copyleft runtime dependencies like ansible-core and yamllint. Own codebase is MIT-licensed, but the effective license for distribution is GPLv3.

Quickstart:

pip install ansible-lint
ansible-lint playbook.yml

Requires Python 3.10 or later and ansible-core as a runtime dependency.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package supports linting Ansible roles in addition to playbooks.
- What specific rule categories or checks are included in version 26.8.0.
- Whether custom rules or rule configuration is supported.

## Package facts

- License: GPL-3.0-or-later (copyleft)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 5.3M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

ansible playbook linter, ansible best practices checker, lint ansible code, ansible quality assurance, ansible static analysis, playbook validation tool, ansible code review automation, ansible, ci-cd, linting

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/ansible-lint) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/ansible-lint/)