Field Notes
A single tab in a YAML heredoc
From the chapter: The cluster that almost wasn't
A small indentation mistake that stopped an Ansible playbook before it could run.
One literal tab inside a shell: | block — an entire playbook failed to parse. YAML forbids tabs for indentation and gives only a cryptic error.
A check I want to make a habit:
bash
grep -Pn '\\t' playbook.ymlRun it before every ansible-playbook or CI run. Tabs in YAML are invisible until they aren't.
Discussion
Questions, corrections, or a different approach? Join the discussion. Comments are public and hosted on GitHub; a GitHub account is needed to comment.