Special Variables¶

Magic¶

These variables are directly not settable by the user, Ansible will always override them to reflect internal state.

ansible_check_mode: Boolean that indicates if we are in check mode or not
ansible_diff_mode: Boolean that indicates if we are in diff mode or not
ansible_forks: Integer reflecting the number of maximum forks available to this run
ansible_inventory_sources: List of sources used as inventory
ansible_play_batch: List of active hosts in the current play run limited by the serial, aka ‘batch’. Failed/Unreachable hosts are not considered ‘active’.
ansible_play_hosts: The same as ansible_play_batch
ansible_play_hosts_all: List of all the hosts that were targeted by the play
ansible_playbook_python: The path to the python interpreter being used by Ansible on the controller
ansible_serach_path: Current search path for action plugins and lookups, i.e where we search for relative paths when you do template: src=myfile
ansible_verbosity: Current verbosity setting for Ansible
ansible_version: Dictionary/map that contains information about the current running version of ansible, it has the following keys: full, major, minor, revision and string.
group_names: List of groups the current host is part of
groups: A dictionary/map with all the groups in inventory and each group has the list of hosts that belong to it
hostvars: A dictionary/map with all the hosts in inventory and variables assigned to them
inventory_hostname: The inventory name for the ‘current’ host being iterated over in the play
inventory_hostname_short: The short version of inventory_hostname
inventory_dir: The directory of the inventory source in which the inventory_hostname was first defined
inventory_file: The file name of the inventory source in which the inventory_hostname was first defined
omit: Special variable that allows you to ‘omit’ an option in a task, i.e - user: name=bob home={{ bobs_home|default(omit)}}
play_hosts: Deprecated, the same as ansbile_play_batch
playbook_dir: The path to the directory of the playbook that was passed to the ansible-playbook command line.
role_names: The names of the rules currently imported into the current play.
role_path: The path to the dir of the currently running role

Facts¶

These are variables that contain information pertinent to the current host (inventory_hostname), they are only available if gathered first.

ansible_facts: Contains any facts gathered or cached for the inventory_hostname Facts are normally gathered by the M(setup) module automatically in a play, but any module can return facts.
ansible_local: Contains any ‘local facts’ gathred or cached for the inventory_hostname. The keys available depend on the custom facts created. See the M(setup) module for more details.

Connection variables¶

These are variables are normally used to set the specifics on how to execute actions on a target, most of them correspond to connection plugins but not all are specific to them, other plugins like shell, terminal and become are normally involved. Only the common ones are described as each connection/become/shell/etc plugin can define it’s own overrides and specific variables.

ansible_become_user: The user Ansible ‘becomes’ after using privilege escalation, this must be available to the ‘login user’.
ansible_connecion: The connection plugin actually used for the task on the target host.
ansible_host: The ip/name of the target host to use instead of inventory_hostname.
ansible_python_interpreter: The path to the Python executable Ansible should use on the target host.
ansible_user: The user Ansible ‘logs in’ as.