ansible-doc

Display documentation for Ansible modules and plugins

TLDR

Show documentation for a module

$ ansible-doc [apt]

List all available modules

$ ansible-doc -l

List modules matching pattern

$ ansible-doc -l | grep [docker]

Show snippet for module usage

$ ansible-doc -s [yum]

Show documentation for collection module

$ ansible-doc [community.docker.docker_container]

List plugins of a type

$ ansible-doc -t [callback] -l

SYNOPSIS

ansible-doc [-l] [-s] [-t type] [module]

ansible-doc displays documentation for Ansible modules, plugins, and collections. It shows module parameters, return values, examples, and notes, serving as a quick reference without needing to access online documentation.
The tool can list all available modules and filter by plugin type, making it useful for discovering available automation options.

PARAMETERS

-l, --list

List available modules or plugins

-s, --snippet

Show playbook snippet for module

-t type, --type type

Plugin type: module, callback, connection, lookup, etc.

-F, --list_files

Show module source files

-j, --json

Output in JSON format

-M path, --module-path path

Additional module search path

CONFIGURATION

ansible.cfg

Main Ansible configuration file, searched in current directory, ~/.ansible.cfg, or /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg.

ANSIBLE_CONFIG

Environment variable to specify an alternate configuration file path.

CAVEATS

Documentation quality varies between core and community modules. Some modules may have outdated documentation. Collection modules use fully qualified names.

HISTORY

ansible-doc has been part of Ansible since early versions, providing offline access to module documentation. Collections support was added with Ansible 2.9 in 2019.