Launch an Ansible job template

This page provides a reference for the ansible.job.launch action available in the workflow automation actions catalog. Use this action to launch an Ansible Automation Platform (Automation Controller) job template from a workflow step.

For prerequisites, see Ansible job actions.

The action identifier is ansible.job.launch.

Launches an Ansible Automation Platform (Automation Controller) job template and returns the created job. On success, returns a job id you can use with ansible.job.getStatus to poll the job until it reaches a terminal state. The endpoint is POST https://{host}/api/controller/v2/job_templates/{jobTemplateId}/launch/.

The following table describes all available input fields for this action.

Input	Type	Description	Example
host	String	Required. Hostname (and optional port) of the Automation Controller, without scheme.	`${{ :secrets:host }}`
authToken	String	Required. OAuth2 token sent as `Authorization: Bearer <token>`. Create under Automation Controller > Users > Tokens with write scope.	`${{ :secrets:ansibleControllerToken }}`
jobTemplateId	Int	Required. Numeric ID of the job template to launch.	`42`
extraVars	Map	Optional. Extra variables passed as `extra_vars`. Requires `ask_variables_on_launch` enabled on the template.	`{"target_env": "staging", "app_version": "1.2.3"}`
limit	String	Optional. Ansible host pattern passed as `limit`. Requires `ask_limit_on_launch`.	`web-servers`
inventory	String	Optional. Numeric inventory ID overriding the template default. Requires `ask_inventory_on_launch`.	`7`
jobTags	String	Optional. Comma-separated tags passed as `job_tags`. Requires `ask_tags_on_launch`.	`deploy,restart`
skipTags	String	Optional. Comma-separated tags to skip, passed as `skip_tags`. Requires `ask_skip_tags_on_launch`.	`notifications`
selectors	List	Optional. JQ selectors to extract specific fields from the action output.	`[{"name": "jobId", "expression": ".id"}, {"name": "status", "expression": ".status"}]`

The following table describes all output fields returned by this action.

Output	Type	Description
success	Boolean	`true` on success, `false` on failure.
response	Object	The created job object. Use the `id` field with `ansible.job.getStatus` to poll status. `{ "id": 128, "status": "pending", "job_template": 42, "url": "/api/controller/v2/jobs/128/" }`
errorMessage	String	Error message on failure. `null` on success.

The following example launches an Ansible job template and captures the job ID for polling.

Workflow example
`name: launch-ansible-remediation description: Launch an Ansible job template to remediate an incident steps: - name: launch_job type: action action: ansible.job.launch version: 1 inputs: host: ${{ :secrets:host }} authToken: ${{ :secrets:ansibleControllerToken }} jobTemplateId: "42" extraVars: target_env: staging app_version: "1.2.3" selectors: - name: jobId expression: ".id" next: end`

Workflow example

name: launch-ansible-remediation
description: Launch an Ansible job template to remediate an incident
steps:
  - name: launch_job
    type: action
    action: ansible.job.launch
    version: 1
    inputs:
      host: ${{ :secrets:host }}
      authToken: ${{ :secrets:ansibleControllerToken }}
      jobTemplateId: "42"
      extraVars:
        target_env: staging
        app_version: "1.2.3"
      selectors:
        - name: jobId
          expression: ".id"
    next: end

Launch an Ansible job template

Launch an Ansible job template.css-21sua1{background:none;border:none;width:0;padding:0;}

Launch an Ansible job template