---
- name: Gather VM inventory from ESXi hypervisor
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    esxi_hostname: "your_esxi_host_ip"  # Replace with your ESXi host IP or hostname
    esxi_username: "root"              # Replace with your ESXi username
    esxi_password: "your_password"     # Replace with your ESXi password (use ansible-vault for security)
    validate_certs: false              # Set to true if you have valid certs

  tasks:
    - name: Gather information about all VMs on the ESXi host
      community.vmware.vmware_vm_info:
        hostname: "{{ esxi_hostname }}"
        username: "{{ esxi_username }}"
        password: "{{ esxi_password }}"
        validate_certs: "{{ validate_certs }}"
      register: vm_info

    - name: Display the VM inventory
      debug:
        var: vm_info

    - name: Save VM inventory to file
      copy:
        content: "{{ vm_info | to_nice_json }}"
        dest: /root/esxi_vm_inventory.json

# Notes:
# - Install the community.vmware collection: ansible-galaxy collection install community.vmware
# - Ensure pyvmomi is installed on the control machine: pip install pyvmomi
# - For production, secure passwords with ansible-vault or use environment variables.