# Strategies

In 2.0 we added a new way to control play execution, `strategy`, by default plays will still run as they used to, with what we call the `linear` strategy. All hosts will run each task before any host starts the next task, using the number of forks (default 5) to parallelize.

The `serial` directive can ‘batch’ this behaviour to a subset of the hosts, which then run to completion of the play before the next ‘batch’ starts.

A second `strategy` ships with ansible `free`, which allows each host to run until the end of the play as fast as it can.:

    - hosts: all
      strategy: free
      tasks:
      ...

## Strategy Plugins

The strategies are implemented via a new type of plugin, this means that in the future new execution types can be added, either locally by users or to Ansible itself by a code contribution.

One example is `debug` strategy. See Playbook Debugger for details.

See also

Playbooks
  An introduction to playbooks
Roles
  Playbook organization by roles
User Mailing List
  Have a question? Stop by the google group!
irc.freenode.net
  #ansible IRC chat channel