Drastically simply playbook syntax

examples/playbook.yml

@@ -1,33 +1,19 @@
 - pattern: '*'
   hosts: /etc/ansible/hosts
   tasks:
-  - do:
-    - configure template & module variables for future template calls
-    - setup a=2 b=3 c=4
-  - do:
-    - copy a file from the local disk to the remote
-    - copy src=/srv/a dest=/srv/b
+  - name: config step
+    action: setup a=2 b=3 c=4
+  - name: copy comand
+    action: copy src=/srv/a dest=/srv/b
     notify: 
     - restart apache
-  - do:
-    - template from local file template.j2 to remote location /srv/file.out
-    - template src=/srv/template.j2 dest=/srv/file.out
+  - name: template step
+    action: template src=/srv/template.j2 dest=/srv/file.out
     notify:
     - restart apache
-    - quack like a duck
-  - do:
-    - if running as non-root whne you template, you should specify the MD file (1)
-    - setup a=3 b=4 c=5 metadata=/tmp/metadata.json 
-  - do:
-    - if running as non-root when you template, you should specify the MD file (2)
-    - template src=/srv/template.j2 dest=/srv/file2.out metadata=/tmp/metadata.json
-  - do:
-    - call something that will fail just to demo failure counts and such
-    - command /bin/false
+  - name: execute bin false
+    comment: call something that will fail just to demo failure counts and such
+    action: command /bin/false
   handlers:
-    - do:
-      - restart apache
-      - service name=httpd ensure=restarted
-    - do:
-      - quack like a duck
-      - command /bin/true
+    - name: restart apache
+      action: service name=httpd ensure=restarted

lib/ansible/playbook.py

@@ -113,9 +113,11 @@ class PlayBook(object):
 
         # load the module name and parameters from the task
         # entry
-        instructions = task['do']
-        (comment, module_details) = instructions
-        tokens = shlex.split(module_details)
+        name    = task['name']
+        action  = task['action']
+        comment = task.get('comment', '')
+
+        tokens = shlex.split(action)
         module_name = tokens[0]
         module_args = tokens[1:]
 
@@ -126,9 +128,9 @@ class PlayBook(object):
 
         if self.verbose:
             if not conditional:
-                print "\nTASK [%s]" % (comment)
+                print "\nTASK [%s]" % (name)
             else:
-                print "\nNOTIFIED [%s]" % (comment)
+                print "\nNOTIFIED [%s]" % (name)
 
         # load up an appropriate ansible runner to
         # run the task in parallel