How to add a callback plugin to a PlaybookExecutor in Ansible 2

Question

How to specify a callback when calling ansible via its API?

I have a callback plugin database_write.py for ansible 2.0.0.2 that logs into a database when this is run:

ansible-playbook -i inventory.txt playbook.yml # callback is fired ok

This works ok because in my $PWD i have ansible.cfg with this line:

callback_plugins   = ./src/callback

Now I'm trying to make ansible to execute my playbook and my callback using the python API. I've basically copied what the ansible-playbook cli tool does

# based on https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/v2.0.0.2-1/lib/ansible/cli/playbook.py
pbex = PlaybookExecutor(playbooks=['../playbook.yml'],
                        inventory=inventory,
                        variable_manager=variable_manager,
                        loader=loader,
                        options=options,
                        passwords=passwords)

results = pbex.run()

This executes the playbook fine, but the callback is not triggered.

I guess when using the python API, my ansible.cfg file is not being taken into account?

how do I specify my callback plugin to the PlaybookExecutor?

(most of the documentation I've found works for ansible versions < 2.0)

thank you in advance!

Answer 1

2.0 API is very raw and generally not suited for end-user. It's likely to be changed in the future also. See this discussion on mailing list where I posted similar question and proposed my own answer that apparently was correct: you can assign your callbacks to TaskQueueManager instance of the executor (PlaybookExecutor._tqm._stdout_callback).

pbex = PlaybookExecutor(playbooks=playbooks, inventory=inventory,
                        variable_manager=variable_manager,
                        loader=loader, options=options,
                        passwords=passwords)
cb = ResultAccumulator()
pbex._tqm._stdout_callback = cb
results = pbex.run()

(ResultAccumulator is callback plugin class from here. It should be derived from ansible.plugins.callback.CallbackBase.

Answer 2

Ansible API docs are scarce. PlaybookExecutor does not accept any callback arguments. However, you can create a custom callback from CallbackBase. Here's an example which returns a list of all the TaskResults:

class SampleCallback(CallbackBase):
    """Sample callback"""

    def __init__(self):
        super(SampleCallback, self).__init__()
        # store all results
        self.results = []

    def v2_runner_on_ok(self, result, **kwargs):
        """Save result instead of printing it"""
        self.results.append(result)

pbe = PlaybookExecutor(
            playbooks=playbooks,
            inventory=inventory,
            variable_manager=variable_manager,
            loader=loader,
            options=options,
            passwords=passwords
        )
callback = SampleCallback()
pbe._tqm._stdout_callback = callback
return_code = pbe.run()
results = callback.results