Start here1 · What Ansible is & isn't6 min · unit 1

stage 1 · Get conversational

15 lessons · 92 min

“You can explain FQCN and the ansible-core-vs-package split without looking them up.”

1 Orientation

What Ansible is, how it thinks, and the two facts every old tutorial gets wrong.

  1. 1 What Ansible is & isn't 6m
  2. 2 Agentless, push-based 6m
  3. 3 ansible-core vs the community package 6m
  4. 4 Collections & FQCN 6m

2 Setup

A working control node, configured deliberately, and your first command.

  1. 5 Installing a control node 7m
  2. 6 ansible.cfg & config precedence 6m
  3. 7 Your first ad-hoc command 5m

3 Inventory

Where hosts live, how they group, and how to aim at exactly the ones you mean.

  1. 8 Inventory: INI and YAML 7m
  2. 9 group_vars & host_vars 6m
  3. 10 Patterns, --limit & per-env inventories 7m
  4. 11 Dynamic inventory & plugins + 6m

4 Playbooks

Plays, tasks and modules — the document you will read and write every day.

  1. 12 Playbook anatomy 7m
  2. 13 YAML pitfalls & the quoting rule 6m
  3. 14 Modules, plugins & collections 5m
  4. 15 Registering output & debug 6m

stage 2 · Working competence

14 lessons · 97 min

“You can read an unfamiliar role and predict what it does and which vars win.”

5 Logic

Variables, facts, conditionals, loops, handlers — how playbooks make decisions.

  1. 16 Variables & the precedence that matters 8m
  2. 17 Facts, set_fact & caching 7m
  3. 18 Conditionals with when 6m
  4. 19 Loops, and the legacy with_* 6m
  5. 20 Handlers, notify & listen 6m
  6. 21 Blocks & error handling 7m

6 Making it real

Idempotency, templating, roles and Galaxy — from snippets to real automation.

  1. 22 Idempotency, deeply 8m
  2. 23 Jinja2 templating & filters 7m
  3. 24 Roles: structure, defaults vs vars 8m
  4. 25 import vs include 6m
  5. 26 Galaxy, requirements.yml & pinning 6m

7 Secrets & scale

Vault for secrets, plus the run controls that keep big runs safe.

  1. 27 Ansible Vault & vault IDs 8m
  2. 28 Strategies, serial & delegation + 7m
  3. 29 Run control: check, diff, tags, limit 7m

stage 3 · Windows track

6 lessons · 40 min

“You can describe why a domain playbook touching a file share fails, and name two fixes.”

8 Windows track

WinRM, auth, runas and the double hop — half your estate, all its own rules.

  1. 30 Windows connections: WinRM, PSRP, SSH win 7m
  2. 31 The WinRM auth matrix win 7m
  3. 32 Setting up a Windows target win 7m
  4. 33 Windows collections & modules win 6m
  5. 34 become, runas & Windows paths win 6m
  6. 35 The double-hop problem win 7m

stage 4 · Workplace ecosystem

7 lessons · 47 min

“You can explain a job template and an EE, and write a Jenkins ansiblePlaybook step.”

9 Workplace ecosystem

Repo conventions, linting, AWX/AAP, Jenkins — sounding fluent on the job.

  1. 36 Repo structure & conventions 7m
  2. 37 ansible-lint & yamllint 6m
  3. 38 Molecule, conceptually + 6m
  4. 39 AWX, AAP & the retired Tower name 6m
  5. 40 Execution environments & navigator 7m
  6. 41 Jenkins + Ansible 7m
  7. 42 Jargon, debugging & interview prep 8m