If we want to automate the password input in playbook, we can create a password file which can store all the passwords for encrypted file and call will be made by ansible to fetch those when required.  ansible_ssh_common_args: '-o ProxyCommand="ssh -W %h:%p -q testuser@gateway.example.com"'  Another way is we can have separate script which contains the password. But at time of calling, print password will be required to stdout for seem less working.  ansible-playbook launch.yml --vault-password-file ~/ .vault_pass.py