diff --git a/GENERATE.md b/GENERATE.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c237e51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/GENERATE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+# ansible-dk generate
+
+An ansible-dk cli subcommand for generating skeleton Ansible code layouts
+
+### Usage:
+>$ ansible-dk generate repo foo
+
+Would generate a skeleton ansible repo named foo by running a generator playbook
+located at /opt/ansible-dk/generators/default/repo.yml
+
+Note: The default generators are still in development and in most cases don't do anything yet.
+
+### Custom Generators
+You can supply custom generator playbooks.  This can be done with a cli arg:
+>$ ansible-dk generate repo -g /path/to/my/generators foo
+
+This would generate an ansible repo named foo using a playbook at /path/to/my/generators/repo.yml
+
+You can also set this in a config file so you won't have to pass it to the cli every time.
+Add something like this to ~/.ansible-dk/config.yml:
+```
+---
+generator: /path/to/my/generators
+```
+
+### Variables
+By default all generator playbooks are passed a variable of [thing]_name.  Example:  repo_name
+You can add custom variables to run with your playbooks in the same format you'd pass them to `ansible-playbooks`:
+>$ ansible-dk generate repo foo -e foo=bar -e bar=foo
diff --git a/ansible-dk-cli/ansible-dk b/ansible-dk-cli/ansible-dk
index b9cae83..c95a9ab 100755
--- a/ansible-dk-cli/ansible-dk
+++ b/ansible-dk-cli/ansible-dk
@@ -6,6 +6,13 @@ import click
 import os
 import sys
 import json
+import yaml
+from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile
+from ansible.executor import playbook_executor
+from ansible.inventory import Inventory
+from ansible.parsing.dataloader import DataLoader
+from ansible.vars import VariableManager
+from collections import namedtuple
 
 ###################################################
 # Defaults
@@ -13,6 +20,26 @@ RUBY_ABI = "2.1.0"
 PYTHON_ABI = "2.7"
 HOME = os.getenv("HOME")
 
+def get_config(debug=False):
+    config_path=os.path.expanduser('~/.ansible-dk/config.yml')
+    config = {
+        'generator': '/opt/ansible-dk/generators/default'
+    }
+    if os.path.isfile(config_path):
+        try:
+            config.update(yaml.load(open(config_path, 'r')))
+            if debug:
+                click.echo("Loaded config from %s:\n%s" % (config_path, config))
+            return config
+        except:
+            if debug:
+                click.echo("Error loading config file %s" % config_path)
+            return config
+    else:
+        if debug:
+            click.echo("No config file found at %s" % config_path)
+        return config
+
 # pull version from version-manifest file left by package install
 def check_version():
     file='/opt/ansible-dk/version-manifest.json'
@@ -101,19 +128,61 @@ def verify():
 
 ###################################################
 # generate command
-@cli.group()
+@cli.group(help='A tool for generating skeleton Ansible code layouts.  More info: https://github.com/omniti-labs/ansible-dk/blob/master/GENERATE.md')
 def generate():
     pass
 
-@generate.command(name='playbook')
-@click.option('--name', required=True, help='Name of playbook to generate')
-def generate_playbook(name):
-    print("Generating playbook: ", name)
+def parse_extra_vars(context, param, e):
+    extra_vars = {}
+    for var in e:
+        try:
+            key, value = var.split('=')
+        except ValueError:
+            raise click.BadParameter('must be in the format var=value')
+        extra_vars[key] = value
+    return extra_vars
+
+# dynamically create generate subcommands
+def generate_method(thing):
+    @generate.command(name=thing, help='Generate ansible %s' % thing)
+    @click.option('--debug', is_flag=True, help="Enable debug mode")
+    @click.option('--generator', '-g', default=False, metavar='/opt/ansible-dk/generators/default', help='Path to custom generator repo')
+    @click.option('-e', 'extra_vars', multiple=True, callback=parse_extra_vars, metavar='var=value', help='extra vars to pass to ansible, multiple ok')
+    @click.argument('name')
+    def generated_method(debug, generator, name, extra_vars):
+        if not generator:
+            generator = get_config(debug)['generator']
+        extra_vars[thing+'_name'] = name
+        playbook_path = "%s/%s.yml" % (generator, thing)
+        if debug:
+            click.echo('generating %s named %s using %s' % (thing, name, playbook_path))
+        run_ansible(playbook_path, extra_vars)
+    generated_method.__name__ = 'generate_%s' % thing
+
+generate_things = ['repo', 'role', 'filter', 'inventory', 'config', 'playbook']
+for thing in generate_things:
+    generate_method(thing)
 
-@generate.command(name='role')
-@click.option('--name', required=True, help='Name of role to generate')
-def generate_role(name):
-    print("Generating role: ", name)
+def run_ansible(playbook, vars=None):
+    if not os.path.exists(playbook):
+        print 'Error - specified role generator playbook does not exist'
+        sys.exit()
+    Options = namedtuple('Options', ['connection', 'module_path', 'forks', 'become', 'become_method', 'become_user', 'check', 'listhosts', 'listtasks', 'listtags', 'syntax', 'remote_user', 'private_key_file', 'ssh_common_args', 'sftp_extra_args', 'scp_extra_args', 'ssh_extra_args', 'verbosity'])
+    options = Options(connection='local', module_path=None, forks=100, become=None, become_method=None, become_user=None, check=False, listhosts=False, listtasks=False, listtags=False, syntax=False, remote_user=None, private_key_file=None, ssh_common_args=None, sftp_extra_args=None, scp_extra_args=None, ssh_extra_args=None, verbosity=None)
+    loader = DataLoader()
+    variable_manager = VariableManager()
+    inventory = Inventory(loader=loader, variable_manager=variable_manager, host_list='localhost')
+    variable_manager.set_inventory(inventory)
+    if vars:
+        variable_manager.extra_vars = vars
+    playbook_executor.PlaybookExecutor(
+        playbooks=[playbook],
+        inventory=inventory,
+        options=options,
+        loader=loader,
+        variable_manager=variable_manager,
+        passwords=dict()
+    ).run()
 
 ###################################################
 # Call main CLI
diff --git a/config/software/ansible-dk-cli.rb b/config/software/ansible-dk-cli.rb
index 92e9537..c55c4ca 100644
--- a/config/software/ansible-dk-cli.rb
+++ b/config/software/ansible-dk-cli.rb
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 name "ansible-dk-cli"
 default_version "0.1.0" # This is just to silence a warning
-description "One day this might be a generic CLI tool; today it is a hack to make shell-init work"
+description "generic CLI tool for ansible-dk"
 
-# This isn't used yet (as we're a shell script, derp) but will be soon!
 dependency 'click'
+dependency 'ansible-dk-generators'
 
 build do
   copy Dir.pwd + "/ansible-dk-cli/ansible-dk", "#{install_dir}/embedded/bin"
diff --git a/config/software/ansible-dk-generators.rb b/config/software/ansible-dk-generators.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..405805b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/config/software/ansible-dk-generators.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+name "ansible-dk-generators"
+default_version "0.1.0" # This is just to silence a warning
+description "a set of generic playbooks for the ansible-dk generator"
+
+build do
+  copy Dir.pwd + "/generators", "#{install_dir}/"
+end
diff --git a/generators/default/config.yml b/generators/default/config.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34db7ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/config.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  tasks:
+  - debug: msg="running dummy config generator playbook"
+
diff --git a/generators/default/filter.yml b/generators/default/filter.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..763fa43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/filter.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  tasks:
+  - debug: msg="running dummy filter generator playbook"
+
diff --git a/generators/default/inventory.yml b/generators/default/inventory.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8444aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/inventory.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  tasks:
+  - debug: msg="running dummy inventory generator playbook"
+
diff --git a/generators/default/playbook.yml b/generators/default/playbook.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70e6b22
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/playbook.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  tasks:
+  - debug: msg="running dummy playbook generator playbook"
+
diff --git a/generators/default/repo.yml b/generators/default/repo.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5dc5880
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/repo.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  tasks:
+  - debug: msg="running dummy repo generator playbook"
+
diff --git a/generators/default/role.yml b/generators/default/role.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f5e08c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/generators/default/role.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+- hosts: localhost
+  connection: local
+  vars:
+    role_subdirectories:
+      - tasks
+      - handlers
+      - templates
+      - files
+      - vars
+      - meta
+  tasks:
+
+  - name: create top level role directory
+    file: state=directory path="{{ role_name }}" recurse=yes
+
+  - name: create subdirectories
+    file: state=directory path="{{ role_name }}/{{ item }}"
+    with_items: "{{ role_subdirectories }}"
+
+  - name: create main.yml files
+    copy: content="---\n" dest="{{ role_name }}/{{ item }}/main.yml"
+    with_items: "{{ role_subdirectories }}"