The 'env-setup' script modifies your environment to allow you to run ansible from a git checkout using python 2.6+. (You may not use python 3 at this time).
First, set up your environment to run from the checkout:
$ source ./hacking/env-setup
You will need some basic prerequisites installed. If you do not already have them and do not wish to install them from your operating system package manager, you can install them from pip
$ easy_install pip # if pip is not already available
$ pip install pyyaml jinja2
From there, follow ansible instructions on ansibleworks.com/docs as normal.
'test-module' is a simple program that allows module developers (or testers) to run a module outside of the ansible program, locally, on the current machine.
Example:
$ ./hacking/test-module -m library/commands/shell -a "echo hi"
This is a good way to insert a breakpoint into a module, for instance.
The module formatter is a script used to generate manpages and online module documentation. This is used by the system makefiles and rarely needs to be run directly.
'authors' is a simple script that generates a list of everyone who has contributed code to the ansible repository.