fix: avoid unnecessary creation of .ansible folders (#4894)

Author: ssbarnea

.gitignore

@@ -79,4 +79,7 @@ test/local-content
 test/schemas/node_modules
 node_modules
 .direnv
-.ansible
+
+# ignore it only at repository root as we want to discover if these are
+# created accidentally in other folders.
+/.ansible

docs/configuring.md

@@ -26,6 +26,9 @@ in your current working directory.
     while the config may be found in a parent directory, the linter still
     expects to be executed from the root of the project being linted.**
 
+    Symlinked config files are followed and resolved and this will affect
+    the how project path will be determined if not mentioned explicitly.
+
 ## Specifying configuration files
 
 Use the `-c <filename>` CLI flag with command line invocations of Ansible-lint,

examples/playbooks/.ansible-lint-only-builtins-allow

@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
 # yaml-language-server: $schema=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/ansible-lint/main/src/ansiblelint/schemas/ansible-lint-config.json
 # Mock modules or roles in order to pass ansible-playbook --syntax-check
+project_dir: ../..
 mock_modules:
   - fake_namespace.fake_collection.fake_module
+  - zuul_return
 
 only_builtins_allow_collections:
   - fake_namespace.fake_collection

pyproject.toml

@@ -96,6 +96,7 @@ dev = [
   "tox-uv>=1.25",
   "types-jsonschema>=4.25.1.20250822",
   "types-pyyaml>=6.0.12.20250822",
+  "uv>=0.8",
 ]
 docs = ["markdown-exec[ansi]>=1.11.0", "mkdocs-ansible>=25.5.0", "six>=1.16.0"]
 lint = [

src/ansiblelint/__main__.py

@@ -144,6 +144,8 @@ def initialize_options(arguments: list[str] | None = None) -> BaseFileLock | Non
     ):
         options.cache_dir = get_cache_dir(pathlib.Path(options.project_dir))
 
+    options.project_dir = Path(options.project_dir).resolve().as_posix()
+
     # add a lock file so we do not have two instances running inside at the same time
     if options.cache_dir:
         options.cache_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

src/ansiblelint/app.py

@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ def __init__(self, options: Options):
 
         # Without require_module, our _set_collections_basedir may fail
         self.runtime = Runtime(
+            project_dir=Path(options.project_dir),
             isolated=True,
             require_module=True,
             verbosity=options.verbosity,

src/ansiblelint/cli.py

@@ -80,6 +80,8 @@ def load_config(
     if not config_path or not os.path.exists(config_path):
         # a missing default config file should not trigger an error
         return {}, None
+    # resolve symlinks in config path as we will only use the final location
+    config_path = Path(config_path).resolve().as_posix()
 
     config_lintable = Lintable(
         config_path,
@@ -99,6 +101,15 @@ def load_config(
     config_dir = os.path.dirname(config_path)
     expand_to_normalized_paths(config, config_dir)
 
+    if (
+        "project_dir" in config
+        and config["project_dir"]
+        and config["project_dir"][0] not in ("/", "~")
+    ):
+        config["project_dir"] = (
+            (Path(config_path).parent / config["project_dir"]).resolve().as_posix()
+        )
+
     return config, config_path
 
 

src/ansiblelint/rules/only_builtins.py

@@ -90,6 +90,8 @@ def test_only_builtins_allow() -> None:
         result = run_ansible_lint(
             f"--config-file={conf_path}",
             "--strict",
+            "--offline",
+            "--nocolor",
             "--warn-list=",
             "--enable-list",
             "only-builtins",

src/ansiblelint/schemas/__store__.json

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
     "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/ansible-lint/main/src/ansiblelint/schemas/inventory.json"
   },
   "meta": {
-    "etag": "d2f353a0077365ff075b14876b619ef65e7268129fd12b4f1b571549f2f39f14",
+    "etag": "fa83d61b00b254d54a7c9a69e4fb8b722f356adec906da7beb733cadda1342bc",
     "url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ansible/ansible-lint/main/src/ansiblelint/schemas/meta.json"
   },
   "meta-runtime": {

test/test_main.py

@@ -183,24 +183,23 @@ def test_list_tags() -> None:
             assert isinstance(item, str)
 
 
-def test_ro_venv() -> None:
+def test_ro_venv(tmp_path: Path) -> None:
     """Tests behavior when the virtual environment is read-only."""
     tox_work_dir = os.environ.get("TOX_WORK_DIR", ".tox")
     venv_path = f"{tox_work_dir}/ro"
-    prerelease_flag = "" if sys.version_info < (3, 14) else "--pre "
     commands = [
         f"mkdir -p {venv_path}",
         f"chmod -R a+w {venv_path}",
         f"rm -rf {venv_path}",
-        f"python -m venv --symlinks {venv_path}",
-        f"{venv_path}/bin/python -m pip install {prerelease_flag}-q -e .",
+        f"uv venv --seed --no-project {venv_path}",
+        f"VIRTUAL_ENV={venv_path} uv pip install -q -e .",
         f"chmod -R a-w {venv_path}",
         # running with a ro venv and default cwd
         f"{venv_path}/bin/ansible-lint --version",
         # running from a read-only cwd:
         f"cd / && {abspath(venv_path)}/bin/ansible-lint --version",  # noqa: PTH100
         # running with a ro venv and a custom project path in forced non-online mode, so it will need to install requirements
-        f"{venv_path}/bin/ansible-lint -vv --no-offline --project-dir ./examples/reqs_v2/ ./examples/reqs_v2/",
+        f"{venv_path}/bin/ansible-lint -vv --nocolor --no-offline --project-dir {tmp_path.as_posix()} ./examples/reqs_v2/",
     ]
     for cmd in commands:
         result = subprocess.run(