Chapter 3. Decision environments

Decision environments are a container image to run Ansible rulebooks. They create a common language for communicating automation dependencies, and provide a standard way to build and distribute the automation environment. The default decision environment is found in the Ansible-Rulebook.

To create your own decision environment refer to Building a custom decision environment for Event-Driven Ansible within Ansible Automation Platform.

3.1. Setting up a new decision environment

The following steps describe how to import a decision environment into your Event-Driven Ansible controller Dashboard.

Prerequisites

  • You are logged in to the Event-Driven Ansible controller Dashboard as a Content Consumer.
  • You have set up a credential, if necessary. For more information, refer to the Credentials section of the Automation controller documentation.
  • You have pushed a decision environment image to an image repository or you chose to use the image de-supported provided at registry.redhat.io.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the Event-Driven Ansible controller Dashboard.
  2. From the navigation panel, select Decision Environments → Create decision environment.

  3. Insert the following:

    Name
    Insert the name.
    Description
    This field is optional.
    Image
    This is the full image location, including the container registry, image name, and version tag.
    Credential
    This field is optional. This is the token needed to utilize the decision environment image.
  4. Select Create decision environment.

Your decision environment is now created and can be managed on the Decision Environments screen.

After saving the new decision environment, the decision environment’s details page is displayed. From there or the Decision Environments list view, you can edit or delete it.

3.2. Building a custom decision environment for Event-Driven Ansible within Ansible Automation Platform

Refer to this section if you need a custom decision environment to provide a custom maintained or third-party event source plugin that is not available in the default decision environment.

Prerequisites

  • Ansible Automation Platform > = 2.4
  • Event-Driven Ansible
  • Ansible Builder > = 3.0

Procedure

  • Add the de-supported decision environment. This image is built from a base image provided by Red Hat called de-minimal.

    Note

    Red Hat recommends using de-minimal as the base image with Ansible Builder to build your custom decision environments.

The following is an example of the Ansible builder definition file using de-minimal as a base image to build a custom decision environment with the ansible.eda collection: 

version: 3

images:
  base_image:
    name: 'registry.redhat.io/ansible-automation-platform-24/de-minimal-rhel8:latest'

dependencies:
  galaxy:
    collections:
      - ansible.eda
  python_interpreter:
    package_system: "python39"

options:
  package_manager_path: /usr/bin/microdnf

Additionally, if other python packages or RPM are needed, you can add the following to a single definition file: 

version: 3

images:
  base_image:
    name: 'registry.redhat.io/ansible-automation-platform-24/de-minimal-rhel8:latest'

dependencies:
  galaxy:
    collections:
      - ansible.eda
  python:
    - six
    - psutil
  system:
    - iputils [platform:rpm]
  python_interpreter:
    package_system: "python39"

options:
  package_manager_path: /usr/bin/microdnf