Installing Packages With Ansible Only If They Do Not Exist
Waylon Walker
Learning in Public @_WaylonWalker
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Part of my neovim setup requires having the black python formatter
installed and callable. I install it with pipx so that I don't have
to manage a virtual environment and have it available everywhere. So
far this works well for me, if there are ever breaking changes I may
need to rethink this.
re-installing a bunch of things that are already installed can be quite a waste and really add up to my ansible run time, so for most of my ansible tasks that install a command like this I have been following this pattern.
- check if the command is installed with
command -v <command> - register that step
- ignore if that step fails
- add a
when: <xxx>_exists is failedcondition to the step that installs that command.
- name: check is black installed shell: command -v black register: black_exists ignore_errors: yes - name: install black when: black_exists is failed shell: pipx install black
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCFg6-W5SBI
I made a video based on this post, check it out if its your thing