docs: def load_inventory(hosts_file=HOSTS_FILE):
      '''Loads Ansible inventory from file.
  
      Parameters
      ----------
      hosts_file: str, optional
          path to Ansible hosts file
  
      Returns
      -------
      ConfigParser.SafeConfigParser
          content of `hosts_file`
      '''
      inventory = SafeConfigParser(allow_no_value=True)
      if os.path.exists(hosts_file):
          inventory.read(hosts_file)
      else:
          logger.warn('inventory file doesn\'t exist: %s', hosts_file)
      return inventory