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Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at spacelift.io

Ansible Tags Strategy

Ansible tags let you run (or skip) only specific parts of a playbook, which is invaluable when playbooks get large, when you’re iterating on one component, or when you need safer, more controlled deployments.

Used well, tags become a lightweight control plane for your automation: you can target setup steps, app deploy steps, config changes, or verification tasks without maintaining separate playbooks.

In the full guide, we cover:

  • How tags work on tasks, roles, and blocks
  • Running subsets with --tags and excluding with --skip-tags
  • Tagging conventions that scale across teams (and avoid “tag sprawl”)
  • Common pitfalls: unexpected task inclusion, inheritance behavior, and debugging tips

➡️ Read the full article on our blog:

https://spacelift.io/blog/ansible-tags

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