Getting a directory of a tasks file for relative paths

Question

In my playbook I run a local_action that executes a script and stores the value for future use:

- local_action: command python release.py
  register: release_url

This worked great, until I moved my playbook into a subdirectory. It turns out that the command runs from your current working directory (that you run ansible from), so the path needs to look like this:

- local_action: command python roles/ghost/release.py

I have a directory structure as below:

• group_vars/
• roles/
  • ghost/
    • tasks/
      • main.yml
    • templates/
    • release.py
• site.yml

However the roles/ghost folder name can change (and hard-coding this won't let you run the playbook from another directory).

How can I get the directory path of tasks/main.yml (which issues the local_action command), so I can give a relative path to it?

Answer 1

As of ansible 1.8, there's a role_path variable defined that you can use for this purpose.

Answer 2

Can you put release.py script in roles/ghost/files/ and then use it with local_action

- name: local scrpt 
  local_action: script release.py

And that way you may not need to get the directory path

This makes reference to doing so in the Directory Layout part http://www.ansibleworks.com/docs/playbooks_best_practices.html