Ansible plugins are pieces of code and functions that add to Ansible's original core functionalities. These plugins enable Ansible to control several APIs and tools that enable the correct functioning of several modules.

The default installation of Ansible includes several essential plugins, which are shown in the following list:

• Action plugins: These are frontend plugins for the modules. They can execute actions on the master host before calling the modules themselves.
• Cache plugins: These are background plugins that are used to cache host facts. This can help with optimizing fact gathering.
• Callback plugins: These help the monitoring and log collection tools to work with Ansible for optimized monitoring.
• Connection plugins: These are responsible for communication with remote hosts that support different types of connections.
• Inventory plugins: These plugins help generate an inventory from specified hosts.
• Shell plugins: These are command controllers that are used to check whether commands are properly formatted and conform with the target machines.
• Strategy plugins: These control the execution of Ansible plays and the pipelining of tasks and schedules.
• Vars plugins: These inject variables that are defined in the inventory or the group or host variables, but are required for the execution of the task.