Ansible Task Looping Directives

External

• https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_loops.html

Internal

• Ansible Concepts

Loops

loop

Takes a list for the task to iterate over, saving each list element into the item variable (configurable via loop_control)

In-Line Declaration

- name: debug
  debug:
    msg: "{{ item }}"
  loop:
    - A
    - B
    - C

Variable

jdks:
  - corretto8
  - corretto11
...
- name: Multiple items in a loop
  homebrew_cask:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    state: present
  loop: "{{ jdks }}"

An existing variable's field that reference a list can be used:

- name: find matching directories
  find:
    paths: /Users/ovidiu/tmp/x
    patterns: '*'
    use_regex: no
    recurse: no
    file_type: directory
  register: find_result
- name: debug
  debug:
    msg: "{{ item }}"
  loop: "{{ find_result.files | json_query('[*].path') }}"

with_items

An iterator whose elements can be accessed with item.<element>. The content to iterate over may came from in-line declaration or from a variable.

In-line Declaration

- name: debug
  debug:
    msg: "{{ item }}"
  with_items:
    - A
    - B
    - C

Variable

- name: Find some files
  find:
    paths: '/some/dir'
    patterns: '*.txt'
  register: find_result
- name: debug
  debug:
    msg: "{{ item }}"
  with_items: "{{ find_result.files | json_query('[*].path') }}"

with_<lookup_plugin>

The same as loop but adds the output of any lookup plugin to generate the item list.