ansible : get roles from playbook in a subfolder

Question

I have this tree:

├── plays
│   ├── ansible.cfg
│   ├── playbook_01.yml
│   ├── playbook_02.yml
│   └── playbook_03.yml
├── README.rst
├── roles
│   ├── role_A
│   │   ├── files
│   │   └── tasks
│   │       └── main.yml
│   └── role_B
│       ├── files
│       └── tasks
│           └── main.yml
├── serverlist
│   ├── client1_serverlist_prod
│   ├── client1_serverlist_test
│   ├── client1_serverlist_train
│   ├── client2_serverlist_prod
│   ├── client2_serverlist_test
│   └── client2_serverlist_train
└── vagrant
    └── Vagrantfile

With ansible.cfg in play folder::

$ cat plays/ansible.cfg
[defaults]
roles_path=../roles/
$

I call from vagrant the ansible.playbook::

$ grep playbook vagrant/Vagrantfile
ansible.playbook = "../plays/playbook_01.yml

on playbook_01.yml::

$ cat plays/playbook_01.yml
- hosts: vagrant
  vars:
    user: fox
    home: /home/fox
  roles:
    - role_B

with role_B::

$ cat roles/role_B/tasks/main.yml
---
- name: Create user group
  group: name={{ user }} state=present

- name: Create home directory for user
  file: state=directory path={{ home }} group=www-data owner={{ user }}
$

But ansible when only went to see roles in play folder, I get this error::

vagrant$ vagrant provision
==> vagrant: Running provisioner: ansible...
PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=false ANSIBLE_FORCE_COLOR=true
ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS='-o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -o
ForwardAgent=yes -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s' ansible-playbook
--user=vagrant --connection=ssh --timeout=30 --limit='vagrant'
--inventory-file=/home/luis/lab/sandbox/akd-iac/stack/vagrant/.vagrant/provisioners/ansible/inventory
--sudo -vvvv ../plays/playbook_01.yml
ERROR: cannot find role in
~/stack/plays/roles/role_B or
~/stack/plays/role_B or /etc/ansible/roles/role_B
Ansible failed to complete successfully. Any error output should be
visible above. Please fix these errors and try again.
vagrant$

Answer 1

You can probably use the variable roles_path. It points to the folder where your roles are stored.

Answer 2

As mentioned your ansible.cfg is not likely being picked up by ansible. You could test if your ansible.cfg is being picked up by setting this:

[defaults]
roles_path = ./isnasiblegettingmycfg

and checking the debug output. The ansible.cfg is looked for in:

• ANSIBLE_CONFIG (an environment variable)
• ansible.cfg (in the current directory)
• .ansible.cfg (in the home directory)
• /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg

Roles are looked for in the directory of the executed playbook, and in the directory roles/ relative to the executed playbook and roles_path. So another simple solution is:

cd ~/stack/plays/ && ln -s ../roles