Way to check that a dictionary key is not defined in ansible task

ansibleansible-playbookconditional

So in my code I have a task

- name: cool task
  shell: 'touch iamnotcool.txt'
  when: me.cool is not defined

and my vars looks like

---
me:
  stumped: yes

So when I run the task it comes back with the following error

{"failed": true, "msg": "The conditional check 'me.cool' failed. The error was: error while evaluating conditional (me.cool): 'dict object' has no attribute 'cool'.

Best Answer

The syntax you included:

when: me.cool is not defined

is correct.

You can also use not in:

when: "'cool' not in me"

The problem is that your error message:

The conditional check 'me.cool' failed.

claims your condition is defined as:

when: me.cool

So, either there is some bug in the version you use (but you did not share which one it is) and there were known issues, or you did not post the exact task that caused the error.

Related Solutions

Ansible: How to access hostvars in task

It seems the answer is to quote the variable name: 'ansible_ec2_instance_id', i.e.:

- debug: msg="{{ hostvars[groups['rundeck-masters'][0]]['ansible_ec2_instance_id'] }}"

Now it works correctly.

Linux – use vars_prompt but when i run the playbook it directly gives me prompt and ask for the value, it doesn’t checks in inventory file

Ansible doesn't support this, from the voice of its creator Michael DeHaan:

vars_prompt always prompts for the variable.

I'd suggest setting a role default instead, or putting a good default value in group_vars/all, and you can override that on the CLI with "-e".

As a workaround you can set a default for your variable prompt and if it's the case override it.

    vars_prompt:
      - name: cr
        prompt: "Please mention the cr id"
        private: no
        default: 12

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ansible: How to access hostvars in task

Linux – use vars_prompt but when i run the playbook it directly gives me prompt and ask for the value, it doesn’t checks in inventory file

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