Include vars in role tasks

Question

In a role, I am trying to load some variables from another role. (If that role was included in the current play, the variables would be accessible, but it's not so they're not.)

So I tried this:

- include_vars: ../../another_role/defaults/main.yml

But it doesn't work, no error but the variables are still undefined. So I tried to be smart and symlink the file to vars/another_role_defaults.yml in the role where I want to use the vars and then include it like this:

- include_vars: another_role_defaults.yml

Same result, no error (why doesn't it throw an error if the file cannot be found??) but variables are still undefined. I tried this as well, for good measure, but still no cigar.

- include_vars: ../vars/another_role_defaults.yml

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

As of ansible-core 2.11 you can do this:

- include_vars: ../../nrpe/vars/standard_nrpe_checks.yml
  name: standard_nrpe_checks
- debug:
    msg: "{{ standard_nrpe_checks }}"

To get the same result you can also use set_fact with the lookup plugin.

- debug:
    msg: "{{ lookup('file', '../../nrpe/vars/standard_nrpe_checks.yml') }}"

I wanted to mention if you're using collections and distributing a playbook you can use

playbooks
  |_vars/
    |_standard_nrpe_checks.yml

In this instance I'm now able to share vars from within a collection and since it's in the lookup path I don't need to specify it relatively. I.e. instead of having a list be an nrpe role default read it in for both roles and maintain it in one place.

- include_vars: standard_nrpe_checks.yml
  name: standard_nrpe_checks
- debug:
    msg: "{{ standard_nrpe_checks }}"

TASK [namespace.my_collection.icinga : debug] *******************************************
ok: [hostname] =>
  msg: |-
    standard_nrpe_checks:
      check_users:
        script: check_users

Answer 2

It was my own fault in the end... I tested this by using the debug module and tags like this:

- include_vars: ../../another_role/defaults/main.yml

- debug: msg={{ variable }}
  tags: foo

and then executing the playbook like this:

  ansible-playbook -vvvv playbook.yml --tags foo

Once I left out the tags, it works (of course). The problem was that I should have added the tags to the include_vars command as well like this:

- include_vars: ../../another_role/defaults/main.yml
  tags: foo

- debug: msg={{ variable }}
  tags: foo