host-fact-inspector

name	host-fact-inspector
description	Correlate job failures with host system facts to determine platform drift and resource issues. Use when: - After job failure analysis identifies affected hosts - "Check the system facts for failed hosts" - "Is the host healthy?", "Check disk space on server-01" - "Why is the service failing on this host?" NOT for: analyzing job events (use job-failure-analyzer first) or resolution guidance (use resolution-advisor after).
model	inherit
color	blue
license	Apache-2.0
allowed-tools	hosts_list hosts_variable_data_retrieve

Host Fact Inspector

Prerequisites

Required MCP Servers:

• aap-mcp-inventory-management - Host details and variable data

Verification: Run the aap-mcp-validator skill with aap-mcp-inventory-management before proceeding.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• After job-failure-analyzer has identified which hosts and errors are involved
• User asks about host system state in the context of a failure
• As part of the forensic-troubleshooter workflow (Step 2)
• User asks to check host health or resource status

Do NOT use when:

• Analyzing job events (use job-failure-analyzer first)
• Getting resolution recommendations (use resolution-advisor after this skill)
• Executing jobs on hosts (use execution-risk-analyzer + governed-job-launcher)

Workflow

Step 1: Consult Troubleshooting Documentation

CRITICAL: Document consultation MUST happen BEFORE any MCP tool invocations.

Document Consultation (REQUIRED - Execute FIRST):

1. Action: Read job-troubleshooting.md using the Read tool to understand the host fact correlation table and error-to-fact mapping
2. Output to user: "I consulted job-troubleshooting.md to understand which host facts correlate with the identified failure patterns."

Step 2: Look Up Affected Hosts

From the job-failure-analyzer output, identify the hostnames that experienced failures.

MCP Tool: hosts_list (from aap-mcp-inventory-management) Parameters:

• search: "<hostname_from_failure_analysis>"
• page_size: 10

Extract the host id from the results.

Step 3: Retrieve Host Facts

MCP Tool: hosts_variable_data_retrieve (from aap-mcp-inventory-management) Parameters:

• id: "<host_id>"
• format: "json"

This returns host variables which may include cached Ansible facts from the last gather_facts run.

Step 4: Correlate Facts with Failure

Using the correlation table from job-troubleshooting.md, check the relevant facts based on the error pattern identified by job-failure-analyzer:

Error Pattern	Host Fact to Check	What to Look For
"No space left on device"	ansible_mounts[].size_available	Disk utilization > 90%
"Unable to start service"	ansible_service_mgr	systemd vs sysvinit mismatch
Package not found	ansible_distribution, ansible_distribution_version	Wrong OS version for package
"Permission denied"	ansible_user_id, ansible_become	Privilege escalation not configured
"Connection timed out"	ansible_default_ipv4	Network misconfiguration
"Module not found"	ansible_python_version	Missing Python dependency
Out of memory	ansible_memtotal_mb, ansible_memfree_mb	Insufficient memory

Step 5: Generate Host Correlation Report

Output format:

## Host Fact Correlation: [hostname]

**Host ID**: [id]
**Last Facts Gathered**: [timestamp if available]

### System Profile
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| OS | [ansible_distribution] [ansible_distribution_version] |
| Kernel | [ansible_kernel] |
| Python | [ansible_python_version] |
| Service Manager | [ansible_service_mgr] |
| Total Memory | [ansible_memtotal_mb] MB |
| Available Memory | [ansible_memfree_mb] MB |

### Correlation with Failure

**Error**: "[error_message from failure analysis]"
**Relevant fact**: [fact_name] = [value]
**Correlation**: [Does this fact explain the failure?]

### Assessment

[Platform drift / Resource issue / Configuration gap / No correlation found]

Per Red Hat's *Troubleshooting Guide*: "[relevant guidance from job-troubleshooting.md]"

Caveat: Stale Facts

Per job-troubleshooting.md: "Cached facts may be stale. If facts were gathered during a previous job run, they reflect the state at that time, not necessarily now."

If facts appear stale or missing, report this: "Host facts may not be current. For authoritative system state, consider running a fact-gathering job on this host."

Dependencies

Required MCP Servers

• aap-mcp-inventory-management - Host data and facts

Required MCP Tools

• hosts_list (from inventory-management) - Look up host by name
• hosts_variable_data_retrieve (from inventory-management) - Retrieve host variables/facts

Related Skills

• job-failure-analyzer - MUST run before this skill to identify affected hosts
• resolution-advisor - Next step: resolution recommendations based on correlation
• execution-summary - Audit trail

Reference Documentation

• job-troubleshooting.md - Host fact correlation table

Example Usage

User: "Check the system facts for the host that failed in Job #4451"

Agent:

1. Reads job-troubleshooting.md
2. Reports: "I consulted job-troubleshooting.md to understand which host facts correlate with package installation failures."
3. Looks up host "web-prod-01" via hosts_list
4. Retrieves facts via hosts_variable_data_retrieve
5. Finds: ansible_distribution: "CentOS", ansible_distribution_version: "9" -- package name is valid for CentOS 9
6. Checks disk: ansible_mounts[0].size_available: 52428800 -- sufficient
7. Reports: "No host fact correlation found for the package error. This appears to be a code issue (wrong package name) rather than a platform issue."