little-timmy

Little Timmy will try their best to find those unused Ansible variables.

cd repo/ansible/plays
ansible-galaxy collection install -f -r requirements.yml -p .
ansible-galaxy role install -f -r requirements.yml -p galaxy_roles

pip3 install little-timmy

little-timmy
# or 
python3 -m little_timmy

It will find most unused variables in:

• group_vars
• host_vars
• vars
• defaults
• set_facts - when not defined as key value pairs on a single line
• register
• Inventory files

It is unlikely to find unused variables or may generate false positives for:

• Complex, dynamically referenced or created variables
• Variables referenced by YAML anchors
• Variables consumed in any custom python filters or similar
• Non standard(ish) directory layouts

False positives can be ignored with a config file detailed in the Config section.

Please raise issues with ideas or contributions with improvements!

Github Action

Workflow

name: little-timmy
on:
  push:
jobs:
  little-timmy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run action
        uses: hoo29/little-timmy@v2-action

Variables

inputs:
  directory:
    description: The root directory for your ansible
    required: false
    default: "."
  additional_cli_args:
    description: Additional CLI arguments to pass to little-timmy
    required: false
    default: ""
  galaxy_role_requirements_file:
    description: Location, relative to `directory`, of the ansible galaxy roles requirements file.
    required: false
  galaxy_collection_requirements_file:
    description: Location, relative to `directory`, of the ansible galaxy collections requirements file.
    required: false
  ansible_vault_password:
    description: |
      Optional ansible-vault password. The content will be a written to a 
      file and ANSIBLE_VAULT_PASSWORD_FILE set to its location. Only used
      by ansible if a vaulted value is found.
    required: false
    default: replace-me-if-vault-is-used

Version and Tags

The latest version can be found in CHANGELOG.md.

The tags on this repo are used for the Github action and do not relate the published python module.

Config

Additional, optional configuration can be specified in a YAML configuration file named .little-timmy. The file can be located at any level between the current working directory and /.

The schema for the file is:

{
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "galaxy_dirs": {
            "description": "Directories where ansible-galaxy collections and roles have been installed. Must be within the directory being scanned.",
            "default": ["ansible_collections", "galaxy_roles"],
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        },
        "skip_vars": {
            "description": "Variables to skip checking.",
            "default": [],
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        },
        "skip_dirs": {
            "description": "Directories to skip loading files from.",
            "default": ["molecule", "venv", "tests"],
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        },
        "extra_jinja_context_keys": {
            "description": """
            Locations where there is already a jinja context for evaluation e.g. `when` and `assert.that`.
            Does not require module FQCN. Values are added to .config_loader.DEFAULT_JINJA_CONTEXT_KEYS.
            """,
            "default": [],
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        }
    },
    "additionalProperties": False
}

Help

little-timmy -h

usage: little-timmy [OPTIONS] [directory]

Process a directory path

positional arguments:
  directory             The directory to process

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -c CONFIG_FILE, --config-file CONFIG_FILE
                        Config file to use. By default it will search all dirs to `/` for .little-timmy
  -d, --dave-mode, --no-dave-mode
                        Make logging work on dave's macbook.
  -e, --exit-success, --no-exit-success
                        Exit 0 when unused vars are found.
  -g, --github-action, --no-github-action
                        Output results for github actions.
  -j, --json-output, --no-json-output
                        Output results as json to stdout. Disables the stderr logger.
  -l LOG_LEVEL, --log-level LOG_LEVEL
                        set the logging level (default: INFO).
  -v, --version, --no-version
                        Output the version.