From ea22e5d0dd9169bc0d38d28227b83b8a2e708b8c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Brian Coca <bcoca@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 12:48:12 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] show internal but not hidden config options, while still
 hiding test options (#84997)

(cherry picked from commit aab732cb826db93265b03ca6f6f9eb1a03746975)
---
 changelogs/fragments/config_priv.yml               |  2 ++
 lib/ansible/config/manager.py                      |  4 ++--
 .../targets/ansible-config/tasks/main.yml          | 14 ++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 changelogs/fragments/config_priv.yml

diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/config_priv.yml b/changelogs/fragments/config_priv.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..367feaed0aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/config_priv.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+minor_changes:
+  - ansible-config will now show internal, but not test configuration entries. This allows for debugging but still denoting the configurations as internal use only (_ prefix).
diff --git a/lib/ansible/config/manager.py b/lib/ansible/config/manager.py
index f4a308d58e4..0f5e8683694 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/config/manager.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/config/manager.py
@@ -480,9 +480,9 @@ class ConfigManager(object):
         else:
             ret = self._plugins.get(plugin_type, {}).get(name, {})
 
-        if ignore_private:
+        if ignore_private:  # ignore 'test' config entries, they should not change runtime behaviors
             for cdef in list(ret.keys()):
-                if cdef.startswith('_'):
+                if cdef.startswith('_Z_'):
                     del ret[cdef]
         return ret
 
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/ansible-config/tasks/main.yml b/test/integration/targets/ansible-config/tasks/main.yml
index 88f29818590..3fbcb56342a 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/ansible-config/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/ansible-config/tasks/main.yml
@@ -141,3 +141,17 @@
       when:
         - item[1] in gs[item[0]]
       loop: '{{gs_keys | product(gs_all) }}'
+
+- name: test ansible-config init for valid private and no hidden
+  vars:
+    config_keys: "{{ config_dump['stdout'] | from_json | selectattr('name', 'defined') }}"
+  block:
+    - name: run config full dump
+      shell: ansible-config dump -t all -f json
+      register: config_dump
+
+    - name: validate we get 'internal' but not hidden (_Z_)
+      assert:
+        that:
+          - config_keys | selectattr('name',  'match', '_.*') | length > 0
+          - config_keys | selectattr('name', 'match', '_Z_.*') | length == 0