Collections and Dependencies

Ansible Collections

An Ansible collection is a bundle of Ansible content (modules, roles, plugins, and sometimes playbooks/docs) grouped under a single name so it can be installed and used together.

Vendors and communities publish collections under a namespace.
For example, cisco is the namespace, and cisco.ios, cisco.aci, cisco.nxos are separate collections inside that namespace.

You cannot install a namespace by itself; you must install specific collections.

For example:

Or with requirements.yml:

---
collections:
  - name: cisco.ios
  - name: cisco.aci
  - name: cisco.nxos

Using requirements.yml is the recommended way in real projects because it documents exactly which collections your automation depends on and makes it easier to reproduce the environment.

Quick Reference

• cisco = namespace
• cisco.ios = collection
• cisco.ios.ios_command = fully qualified module name