Ansible VS BuiltTools 2022 With workloads

Question

I am using Ansible to install Visual Studio Build Tools 2022. I am trying to install specific workloads and using the documentation from Microsoft , ansible and choco but still not able to install the workloads I want with Ansible. I am new with Ansible so not sure what I am doing wrong.

My playbook run seems to complete with no issue, when I go to the server it is installing the visual studio installer is there but the workloads I need are not installed.

    - name: Install VS Tools
      win_chocolatey:
        name: visualstudio2022buildtools
        state: latest
        version: 117.9.0.0
        install_args:
          "--passive --wait ----includeOptional --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NodeBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.WebBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.DataBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools"
      register: vs_output

output:

TASK [register for vs tools] ****************************************************************************
ok: [win_test] => {
"msg": " {'changed': False, 'rc': 0, 'choco_cli_version': '2.2.2', 
'failed': False}"
 }

Answer 1

NOTE: I haven't directly tried the following, but I am basing this on how I believe the Visual Studio packages work.

The combination of Visual Studio Chocolatey packages rely on the usage of Package Parameters, or rather the package_params argument, rather than the Installation Arguemnts, or rather install_args, argument in your Ansible script.

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/chocolatey/chocolatey/win_chocolatey_module.html#parameter-package_params

This can be seen in the example from taken from here:

choco install visualstudio2022buildtools --package-parameters "--allWorkloads --includeRecommended --includeOptional --passive --locale en-US"

As such, I think the correct way of doing this would be:

    - name: Install VS Tools
      win_chocolatey:
        name: visualstudio2022buildtools
        state: present
        version: '117.9.0.0'
        package_params:
          "--includeOptional --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.NodeBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.WebBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.DataBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools"
      register: vs_output

Also, based on this (taken from here):

The package passes --norestart --wait by default, and --quiet, unless --passive is specified in the package parameters.

You may want to re-think your usage of the --wait and --passive arguments that you were attempting to pass in.

Answer 2

Got it to work by installing the workloads individually:

 - name: Install Visual Studio Build Tools
   win_chocolatey:
    name: visualstudio2022buildtools
    state: latest
    version: "117.9.0.0"

- name: Install specific workloads
  win_chocolatey:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    state: latest
  loop:
    - visualstudio2022-workload-nodebuildtools
    - visualstudio2022-workload-webbuildtools
    - visualstudio2022-workload-databuildtools

Answer 3

An improved version of @PanzerRage's answer - I don't see it on the module documentation page, but usually for package management modules it's recommended to pass the list of packages directly to the name instead of running the module in a loop due to performance reasons:

- name: Install Visual Studio Build Tools
  win_chocolatey:
    name: visualstudio2022buildtools
    state: latest
    version: "117.9.0.0"

- name: Install specific workloads
  win_chocolatey:
    name:
      - visualstudio2022-workload-nodebuildtools
      - visualstudio2022-workload-webbuildtools
      - visualstudio2022-workload-databuildtools
    state: latest