Ansible Galaxy Scraper

Scrape Ansible Galaxy — search collections (v3 API) and roles (v1 API), or fetch specific collections by namespace.name slug. No authentication or proxies required.

What it does

• Search collections by keyword using the Galaxy v3 API, sorted by download count
• Search roles by keyword using the Galaxy v1 legacy roles API
• Fetch specific collections by namespace.name slug with full version metadata
• Returns download counts, tags, descriptions, licenses, repository URLs, and canonical Galaxy links

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
mode	string	searchCollections, searchRoles, or getCollectionDetail	searchCollections
searchQuery	string	Keyword to search for	nginx
namespace	string	Filter by namespace/author	—
collectionSlugs	string[]	Collection slugs namespace.name (mode=getCollectionDetail)	[]
maxItems	integer	Max records to return (1–500)	50

Example: search collections

{
  "mode": "searchCollections",
  "searchQuery": "nginx",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: search roles

{
  "mode": "searchRoles",
  "searchQuery": "docker",
  "namespace": "geerlingguy",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example: get specific collections

{
  "mode": "getCollectionDetail",
  "collectionSlugs": ["community.general", "nginxinc.nginx_core"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Output

Collection record fields

Field	Type	Description
namespace	string	Collection namespace
collectionName	string	Collection name
version	string	Latest version
description	string	Description
downloadCount	integer	Total downloads
stars	integer	Community score (when available)
tags	string[]	Tags
license	string[]	License identifiers
issuesUrl	string	Issue tracker URL
repositoryUrl	string	Source repository URL
documentationUrl	string	Documentation URL
homepageUrl	string	Homepage URL
sourceUrl	string	https://galaxy.ansible.com/{namespace}/{name}
recordType	string	Always "collection"
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp

Role record fields

Field	Type	Description
roleId	integer	Galaxy role ID
namespace	string	Role namespace
roleName	string	Role name
description	string	Description
githubUser	string	GitHub username
githubRepo	string	GitHub repository name
downloadCount	integer	Total downloads
tags	string[]	Role tags
latestVersion	string	Latest published version
sourceUrl	string	https://galaxy.ansible.com/{namespace}/{roleName}
recordType	string	Always "role"
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp

Sample collection output

{
  "namespace": "nginxinc",
  "collectionName": "nginx_core",
  "version": "0.8.0",
  "description": "Install and configure NGINX and NGINX App Protect using Ansible",
  "downloadCount": 704974,
  "tags": ["nginx", "server", "web", "reverse_proxy", "load_balancer"],
  "license": [],
  "repositoryUrl": "https://github.com/nginxinc/ansible-collection-nginx",
  "issuesUrl": "https://github.com/nginxinc/ansible-collection-nginx/issues",
  "sourceUrl": "https://galaxy.ansible.com/nginxinc/nginx_core",
  "recordType": "collection",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-30T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Sample role output

{
  "roleId": 10923,
  "namespace": "geerlingguy",
  "roleName": "docker",
  "description": "Docker for Linux.",
  "githubUser": "geerlingguy",
  "githubRepo": "ansible-role-docker",
  "downloadCount": 27701830,
  "tags": ["web", "system", "containers", "docker"],
  "latestVersion": "8.0.0",
  "sourceUrl": "https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy/docker",
  "recordType": "role",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-30T10:00:00+00:00"
}

FAQs

Q: Does this require an API key or proxy? No. Ansible Galaxy provides a fully open public API.

Q: What is the difference between collections and roles? Collections (v3 API) are the modern format introduced in Ansible 2.9+. Roles (v1 API) are the legacy format. Both are supported.

Q: How does search work for collections? The scraper uses the Galaxy v3 plugin/ansible/search/collection-versions API with is_highest=true so only the latest version of each collection is returned.

Q: How does search work for roles? The scraper uses the Galaxy v1 /api/v1/roles/ endpoint with keyword filtering.

Q: What is getCollectionDetail mode? It fetches a specific collection by its namespace.name slug, enriching the record with full version metadata including repository, documentation, and issues URLs.

Q: Why is license sometimes an empty list? Many collections on Ansible Galaxy do not specify a license in their metadata. The field is omitted when empty.