include_role – Load and execute a role

Synopsis

  • Dynamically loads and executes a specified role as a task.

  • May be used only where Ansible tasks are allowed - inside pre_tasks, tasks, or post_tasks playbook objects, or as a task inside a role.

  • Task-level keywords, loops, and conditionals apply only to the include_role statement itself.

  • To apply keywords to the tasks within the role, pass them using the apply option or use import_role instead.

  • Ignores some keywords, like until and retries.

  • This module is also supported for Windows targets.

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
allow_duplicates
boolean
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
Overrides the role's metadata setting to allow using a role more than once with the same parameters.
apply
-
added in 2.7
Accepts a hash of task keywords (e.g. tags, become) that will be applied to all tasks within the included role.
defaults_from
string
Default:
"main"
File to load from a role's defaults/ directory.
handlers_from
string
added in 2.8
 Default:
"main"
File to load from a role's handlers/ directory.
name
string / required
The name of the role to be executed.
public
boolean
added in 2.7
    Choices:
  • no ←
  • yes
This option dictates whether the role's vars and defaults are exposed to the playbook. If set to yes the variables will be available to tasks following the include_role task. This functionality differs from standard variable exposure for roles listed under the roles header or import_role as they are exposed at playbook parsing time, and available to earlier roles and tasks as well.
tasks_from
string
Default:
"main"
File to load from a role's tasks/ directory.
vars_from
string
Default:
"main"
File to load from a role's vars/ directory.

Notes

Note

  • Handlers are made available to the whole play.

  • Before Ansible 2.4, as with include, this task could be static or dynamic, If static, it implied that it won’t need templating, loops or conditionals and will show included tasks in the --list options. Ansible would try to autodetect what is needed, but you can set static to yes or no at task level to control this.

  • After Ansible 2.4, you can use import_role for static behaviour and this action for dynamic one.

See Also

See also

import_playbook – Import a playbook

The official documentation on the import_playbook module.

import_role – Import a role into a play

The official documentation on the import_role module.

import_tasks – Import a task list

The official documentation on the import_tasks module.

include_tasks – Dynamically include a task list

The official documentation on the include_tasks module.

Including and Importing

More information related to including and importing playbooks, roles and tasks.

Examples

- include_role:
    name: myrole

- name: Run tasks/other.yaml instead of 'main'
  include_role:
    name: myrole
    tasks_from: other

- name: Pass variables to role
  include_role:
    name: myrole
  vars:
    rolevar1: value from task

- name: Use role in loop
  include_role:
    name: '{{ roleinputvar }}'
  loop:
    - '{{ roleinput1 }}'
    - '{{ roleinput2 }}'
  loop_control:
    loop_var: roleinputvar

- name: Conditional role
  include_role:
    name: myrole
  when: not idontwanttorun

- name: Apply tags to tasks within included file
  include_role:
    name: install
    apply:
      tags:
        - install
  tags:
    - always

Status

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

  • Ansible Core Team (@ansible)

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