ara/doc/source/api-usage.rst

Using ARA API clients

When installing ARA, you are provided with a REST API server and two API clients out of the box:

• AraOfflineClient can query the API without needing an API server to be running
• AraHttpClient is meant to query a specified API server over http

ARA Offline API client

If your use case doesn't require a remote or persistent API server, the offline client lets you query the API without needing to start an API server.

In order to use this client, you would instanciate it like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Import the client
from ara.clients.offline import AraOfflineClient

# Instanciate the offline client
client = AraOfflineClient()

ARA HTTP API client

AraHttpClient works with the same interface, methods and behavior as AraOfflineClient.

You can set your client to communicate with a remote ara-server API by specifying an endpoint parameter:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Import the client
from ara.clients.http import AraHttpClient

# Instanciate the HTTP client with an endpoint where an API server is listening
client = AraHttpClient(endpoint="https://api.demo.recordsansible.org")

Example API usage

For more details on the API endpoints, see api-documentation:API Documentation.

Otherwise, once you've instanciated your client, you're ready to query the API.

Here's a code example to help you get started:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# Import the client
from ara.clients.http import AraHttpClient

# Instanciate the HTTP client with an endpoint where an API server is listening
client = AraHttpClient(endpoint="https://api.demo.recordsansible.org")

# Get a list of failed playbooks
# /api/v1/playbooks?status=failed
playbooks = client.get("/api/v1/playbooks", status="failed")

# If there are any results from our query, get more information about the
# failure and print something helpful
template = "{timestamp}: {host} failed '{task}' ({task_file}:{lineno})"
for playbook in playbooks["results"]:
    # Get a detailed version of the playbook that provides additional context
    detailed_playbook = client.get("/api/v1/playbooks/%s" % playbook["id"])

    # Iterate through the playbook to get the context
    # Playbook -> Play -> Task -> Result <- Host
    for play in detailed_playbook["plays"]:
        for task in play["tasks"]:
            for result in task["results"]:
                if result["status"] in ["failed", "unreachable"]:
                    print(template.format(
                        timestamp=result["ended"],
                        host=result["host"]["name"],
                        task=task["name"],
                        task_file=task["file"]["path"],
                        lineno=task["lineno"]
                    ))

Running this script would then provide an output that looks like the following:

2019-03-20T16:18:41.710765: localhost failed 'smoke-tests : Return false' (tests/integration/roles/smoke-tests/tasks/test-ops.yaml:25)
2019-03-20T16:19:17.332663: localhost failed 'fail' (tests/integration/failed.yaml:22)