Modules (also referred to as "task plugins" or "library plugins") are discrete units of code that can be used from the command line or in a playbook task. Ansible executes each module, usually on the remote managed node, and collects return values. In Ansible 2.10 and later, most modules are hosted in collections.
Each module supports taking arguments. Nearly all modules take ``key=value`` arguments, space delimited. Some modules take no arguments, and the command/shell modules simply take the string of the command you want to run.
All modules return JSON format data. This means modules can be written in any programming language. Modules should be idempotent, and should avoid making any changes if they detect that the current state matches the desired final state. When used in an Ansible playbook, modules can trigger 'change events' in the form of notifying :ref:`handlers <handlers>` to run additional tasks.
