ansible.builtin.include_vars module – Load variables from files, dynamically within a task

Note

This module is part of ansible-core and included in all Ansible installations. In most cases, you can use the short module name include_vars even without specifying the collections keyword. However, we recommend you use the Fully Qualified Collection Name (FQCN) ansible.builtin.include_vars for easy linking to the module documentation and to avoid conflicting with other collections that may have the same module name.

Synopsis

• Loads YAML/JSON variables dynamically from a file or directory, recursively, during task runtime.

• If loading a directory, the files are sorted alphabetically before being loaded.

• This module is also supported for Windows targets.

• To assign included variables to a different host than inventory_hostname, use delegate_to and set delegate_facts=yes.

Note

This module has a corresponding action plugin.

Parameters

Parameter	Comments
depth integer	When using dir, this module will, by default, recursively go through each sub directory and load up the variables. By explicitly setting the depth, this module will only go as deep as the depth. Default: 0
dir path	The directory name from which the variables should be loaded. If the path is relative and the task is inside a role, it will look inside the role’s vars/ subdirectory. If the path is relative and not inside a role, it will be parsed relative to the playbook.
extensions list / elements=string	List of file extensions to read when using dir. Default: ["json", "yaml", "yml"]
file path	The file name from which variables should be loaded. If the path is relative, it will look for the file in vars/ subdirectory of a role or relative to playbook.
files_matching string	Limit the files that are loaded within any directory to this regular expression.
free-form string	This module allows you to specify the ‘file’ option directly without any other options. There is no ‘free-form’ option, this is just an indicator, see example below.
hash_behaviour string added in ansible-core 2.12	If set to merge, merges existing hash variables instead of overwriting them. If omitted (null), the behavior falls back to the global hash_behaviour configuration. This option is self-contained and does not apply to individual files in dir. You can use a loop to apply hash_behaviour per file. Choices: "replace" "merge"
ignore_files list / elements=string	List of file names to ignore.
ignore_unknown_extensions boolean added in Ansible 2.7	Ignore unknown file extensions within the directory. This allows users to specify a directory containing vars files that are intermingled with non-vars files extension types (e.g. a directory with a README in it and vars files). Choices: false ← (default) true
name string	The name of a variable into which assign the included vars. If omitted (null) they will be made top level vars.

Attributes

Attribute	Support	Description
action	Support: partial While the action plugin does do some of the work it relies on the core engine to actually create the variables, that part cannot be overridden	Indicates this has a corresponding action plugin so some parts of the options can be executed on the controller
async	Support: none	Supports being used with the async keyword
become	Support: none	Is usable alongside become keywords
bypass_host_loop	Support: none	Forces a ‘global’ task that does not execute per host, this bypasses per host templating and serial, throttle and other loop considerations Conditionals will work as if run_once is being used, variables used will be from the first available host This action will not work normally outside of lockstep strategies
bypass_task_loop	Support: none	These tasks ignore the loop and with_ keywords
check_mode	Support: full	Can run in check_mode and return changed status prediction without modifying target
connection	Support: none	Uses the target’s configured connection information to execute code on it
core	Support: partial While parts of this action are implemented in core, other parts are still available as normal plugins and can be partially overridden	This is a ‘core engine’ feature and is not implemented like most task actions, so it is not overridable in any way via the plugin system.
delegation	Support: partial while variable assignment can be delegated to a different host the execution context is always the current inventory_hostname connection variables, if set at all, would reflect the host it would target, even if we are not connecting at all in this case	Can be used in conjunction with delegate_to and related keywords
diff_mode	Support: none	Will return details on what has changed (or possibly needs changing in check_mode), when in diff mode
ignore_conditional	Support: none	The action is not subject to conditional execution so it will ignore the when: keyword
platform	Platforms: all	Target OS/families that can be operated against
tags	Support: full	Allows for the ‘tags’ keyword to control the selection of this action for execution
until	Support: full	Denotes if this action objeys until/retry/poll keywords

See Also

See also

ansible.builtin.set_fact

Set host variable(s) and fact(s).

Controlling where tasks run: delegation and local actions

More information related to task delegation.

Examples

- name: Include vars of stuff.yaml into the 'stuff' variable (2.2).
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    file: stuff.yaml
    name: stuff

- name: Conditionally decide to load in variables into 'plans' when x is 0, otherwise do not. (2.2)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    file: contingency_plan.yaml
    name: plans
  when: x == 0

- name: Load a variable file based on the OS type, or a default if not found. Using free-form to specify the file.
  ansible.builtin.include_vars: "{{ lookup('ansible.builtin.first_found', params) }}"
  vars:
    params:
      files:
        - '{{ansible_distribution}}.yaml'
        - '{{ansible_os_family}}.yaml'
        - default.yaml
      paths:
        - 'vars'

- name: Bare include (free-form)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars: myvars.yaml

- name: Include all .json and .jsn files in vars/all and all nested directories (2.3)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars/all
    extensions:
      - 'json'
      - 'jsn'

- name: Include all default extension files in vars/all and all nested directories and save the output in test. (2.2)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars/all
    name: test

- name: Include default extension files in vars/services (2.2)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars/services
    depth: 1

- name: Include only files matching bastion.yaml (2.2)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars
    files_matching: bastion.yaml

- name: Include all .yaml files except bastion.yaml (2.3)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars
    ignore_files:
      - 'bastion.yaml'
    extensions:
      - 'yaml'

- name: Ignore warnings raised for files with unknown extensions while loading (2.7)
  ansible.builtin.include_vars:
    dir: vars
    ignore_unknown_extensions: True
    extensions:
      - ''
      - 'yaml'
      - 'yml'
      - 'json'

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key	Description
ansible_included_var_files list / elements=string	A list of files that were successfully included Returned: success Sample: ["/path/to/file.json", "/path/to/file.yaml"]

Authors

• Allen Sanabria (@linuxdynasty)

Collection links

• Issue Tracker
• Repository (Sources)
• Communication