Part 2: Understanding Playbooks — Tasks, Handlers, and Reusability

Now that you’ve successfully created and run your first Ansible playbook, it’s time to expand your skills. In this post, we’ll explore how to structure more powerful and reusable playbooks using:

• Multiple tasks
• Variables
• Handlers
• Tags

These concepts will help you build automation that is cleaner, modular, and more efficient.

Multiple Tasks in a Playbook

Playbooks often contain more than one task. Here’s how you can install multiple packages in sequence:

---
- name: Install useful tools
  hosts: home_servers
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Install htop
      apt:
        name: htop
        state: present

    - name: Install curl
      apt:
        name: curl
        state: present

    - name: Install git
      apt:
        name: git
        state: present

Using Variables

Variables make your playbooks flexible and reusable.

---
- name: Install tools using variables
  hosts: home_servers
  become: true
  vars:
    tools:
      - htop
      - curl
      - git
  tasks:
    - name: Install each tool
      apt:
        name: "{{ item }}"
        state: present
      loop: "{{ tools }}"

This way, you can manage your tool list in one place.

Introducing Handlers

Handlers are tasks that only run when notified by another task. A common use case is restarting a service only when its config file changes.

---
- name: Update SSH config and restart if needed
  hosts: home_servers
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Update sshd_config
      copy:
        src: sshd_config
        dest: /etc/ssh/sshd_config
      notify: Restart SSH

  handlers:
    - name: Restart SSH
      service:
        name: ssh
        state: restarted

Using Tags to Control Task Execution

Tags allow you to run only specific parts of your playbook:

  tasks:
    - name: Install UFW
      apt:
        name: ufw
        state: present
      tags:
        - firewall

Run the playbook with only firewall tasks:

ansible-playbook tools.yml --tags firewall

Tips for Reusability

• Avoid hardcoding values — use variables instead
• Use handlers for conditional actions
• Group related tasks with tags
• Begin thinking about using roles (we’ll cover these in Part 4!)

Coming Up Next

In Part 3, we’ll build on this foundation by exploring real-world use cases: creating users, managing services, setting up scheduled jobs, and more using core Ansible modules.

You’re one step closer to becoming an automation pro. Keep going!