Getting started with Execution Environments

You can run Ansible automation in containers, like any other modern software application. Ansible uses container images known as Execution Environments (EE) that act as control nodes.

An Execution Environment image contains the following packages as standard:

  • ansible-core

  • ansible-runner

  • Python

  • Ansible content dependencies

In addition to the standard packages, an EE can also contain:

  • one or more Ansible collections and their dependencies

  • other custom components

This getting started guide shows you how to build and test a simple Execution Environment. The resulting container image represents an Ansible control node that contains the standard EE packages plus the community.postgresql collection and the psycopg2-binary Python package.