Programmatic Inventory Lifecycle

The platform maintains absolute alignment between live compute assets and your declarative code definitions by eliminating manual inventory adjustments. When a virtual machine or bare-metal host is spun up or decommissioned, the lifecycle event is programmatically committed to the Git-backed inventory repository via API integration patterns.

Programmatic Provisioning & Git Loop

The host enrollment lifecycle transitions an initial provisioning request into a git-versioned inventory alignment loop without operator intervention:

graph TD
    A[1. Provisioning Requested<br/><code>In-House System</code>] --> B[2. Automated API Signal<br/><code>AAP / AWX / Jenkins</code>]
    B --> C[3. Execute Provisioning Job<br/><code>Playbook / Runner Bubble</code>]
    C --> D[4. Ingest & Target State<br/><code>git_inventory.update_inventory</code>]
    D --> E[5. Mutate & Lock Blueprint<br/><code>Clone ➔ Update ➔ Commit ➔ Push</code>]
    E --> F[6. Core Site Realization<br/><code>site.yml Active Deployment</code>]

    style A fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;
    style B fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;
    style C fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;
    style D fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;
    style E fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;
    style F fill:#f1f5f9,stroke:#cbd5e1,stroke-width:2px;

Architectural Lifecycle Steps

1. In-House Provisioning Request

An infrastructure scaling event or machine decommissioning request is initiated inside your internal, in-house provisioning system. This request carries key asset markers including IP addresses, hostnames, and targeted functional groups (such as GPU capabilities or specific application tags).

2. API-Driven Control Plane Handshake

The provisioning platform triggers a secure, non-interactive API callback to the central automation controller engine (such as Ansible Automation Platform/AAP, AWX, or Jenkins). This avoids manual GUI setup tasks and fat-fingered errors by converting the parameters directly into a standardized execution schema payload.

3. Execution of the Git Inventory Automation Loop

The automation controller triggers a dedicated maintenance job that executes the specialized dettonville.git_inventory.update_inventory module. This tool operates cleanly inside a containerized runner environment and automates the following steps:

• Secure Clone & Pull: Clones the authoritative repository containing your YAML inventories via protected SSH key channels.
• Idempotent Modification: Parses inventory/{environment}/hosts.yml or your central xenv_groups.yml matrices to inject or remove the host targets under their designated structural group mappings.
• Git Commit & Push: Signs the modification with an infrastructure tracking comment prefix (e.g., ticket ID) and pushes the verified state back up to your corporate source control repository.

4. Downstream Site Realization

Once the Git transaction is completed, the new host profile is permanently locked into code. Subsequent automated webhooks or active executions of your core site.yml ingest the fresh state configuration natively, instantly applying your foundational bootstrap rules (bootstrap_ansible_user, bootstrap_linux, etc.) to stabilize the machine.

Domain Naming Conventions

When passing provisioning group inputs to the update_inventory module, targets must be mapped to their environment boundaries according to your strict naming standards:

• Convention Schema: Every domain boundary uses the ca_domain_ prefix followed by the domain name in reverse order with underscores replacing dots.
• Mapping Action: For instance, if the provisioning engine spawns an asset bound for dettonville.int, the API payload instructs the module to map that host specifically inside the ca_domain_int_dettonville parent group layout.

Automated Variable Mapping Example

This sample playbook task shows how the programmatic wrapper leverages the update_inventory module to enroll a newly generated GPU compute cluster node into your Git repository cleanly:

- name: Automate host enrollment inside the Git inventory structure
  dettonville.git_inventory.update_inventory:
    inventory_repo_url: "ssh://[email protected]:2222/infra/datacenter-inventory.git"
    inventory_file: "inventory/prod/hosts.yml"
    git_comment_prefix: "PROVISION-API-2026"
    ssh_params:
      key_file: "/run/secrets/automation_ssh_key"
    state: present
    host_list:
      - host_name: "inference-grid-03.dettonville.int"
        parent_groups:
          - ca_domain_int_dettonville
          - aibrix_prod
          - ollama_hosts

Operational Verification Actions

Review the Structural State of Your Inventory Graph Programmatically

ansible-inventory -i inventory/prod/hosts.yml --graph

Validate Inventory Module Parameters and Documentation Locally

ansible-doc dettonville.git_inventory.update_inventory