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# Action Plugins

- Enabling action plugins
- Using action plugins
- Plugin list

Action plugins act in conjunction with modules to execute the actions required by playbook tasks. They usually execute automatically in the background doing prerequisite work before modules execute.

The ‘normal’ action plugin is used for modules that do not already have an action plugin.

## Enabling action plugins

You can enable a custom action plugin by either dropping it into the `action_plugins` directory adjacent to your play, inside a role, or by putting it in one of the action plugin directory sources configured in ansible.cfg.

## Using action plugins

Action plugin are executed by default when an associated module is used; no action is required.

## Plugin list

You cannot list action plugins directly, they show up as their counterpart modules:

Use `ansible-doc -l` to see the list of available modules. Use `ansible-doc <name>` to see specific documentation and examples, this should note if the module has a corresponding action plugin.

See also

Cache Plugins
  Ansible Cache plugins
Callback Plugins
  Ansible callback plugins
Connection Plugins
  Ansible connection plugins
Inventory Plugins
  Ansible inventory plugins
Shell Plugins
  Ansible Shell plugins
Strategy Plugins
  Ansible Strategy plugins
Vars Plugins
  Ansible Vars plugins
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