Skip Ansible task when running in check mode?

Question

I'm writing an Ansible playbook and have a task which will always fail in check mode:

hosts: ... tasks:     - set_fact: filename="{{ansible_date_time.iso8601}}"     - file: state=touch name={{filename}}     - file: state=link src={{filename}} dest=latest 

In check mode, the file will not be created so the link task will always fail. Is there a way to mark such a task to be skipped when running in check mode? Something like:

- file: state=link src={{filename}} dest=latest   when: not check_mode 

Answer 1

Ansible 2.1 supports ansible_check_mode magic variable which is set to True in check mode (official docs). This means you will be able to do this:

- file:     state: link     src: '{{ filename }}'     dest: latest   when: not ansible_check_mode 

or

- file:     state: link     src: '{{ filename }}'     dest: latest   ignore_errors: '{{ ansible_check_mode }}' 

whichever you like more.