Tasks in an 'include_tasks' are not run when specifying tags (unlike the deprecated include)

[nilsfr]

ISSUE TYPE

• Bug Report

COMPONENT NAME

ansible/lib/ansible/playbook/block.py

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.4.0.0
  config file = /home/nilsfr/.ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = [u'/home/nilsfr/.ansible/plugins/modules', u'/usr/share/ansible/plugins/modules']
  ansible python module location = /home/nilsfr/usit/vortex-vhostlib/venv-vhostlib-py2/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ansible
  executable location = /home/nilsfr/usit/vortex-vhostlib/venv-vhostlib-py2/bin/ansible
  python version = 2.7.12 (default, Jul  1 2016, 15:12:24) [GCC 5.4.0 20160609]

SUMMARY

The difference between 'include' and 'include_tags' is in this line:

ansible/lib/ansible/playbook/block.py

Line 353 in 25e17b4

(task.action == 'include' and task.evaluate_tags([], play_context.skip_tags, all_vars=all_vars)) or

Is this intentional?

In the project I am working on we are relying on the use of tags inside a dynamic include.

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[arbabnazar]

@nilsfr can you please try import_tasks instead of include_tasks, I think that's the limitation of the include_tasks and it's mentioned somewhere in the docs.

[nilsfr]

I use it in a loop, so I cannot use import_tasks. I also tried to tag the loop with 'always', but then all the tasks inside was run regardless of their tags.

Example:

- include_tasks: "vhost.yaml"
  vars:
    vhost_vars: "{{ vhosts_vars[vhost] }}"
  with_items: "{{ vortex_vhosts }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var: vhost

[arbabnazar]

@nilsfr you didn't mentioned about the loop in your issue report. You can read about the include_tasks and tags here

[nilsfr]

The way I read the documentation it says that tags added to an import_tasks will be added to all tasks that are imported, but tags added to an include_tasks will only apply to the task itself. I cannot read from this that the whole include_tasks should be skipped if itself to not have the required tag. It should look into the imported file and dynamically check each task for the tag, that is if it do not have any tags on itself. This is how 'include' currently behaves.

If I add an 'always' tag to the include_tasks all the tasks inside will always run, which it the opposite from what I read from the documentation.

If you change the the expression in above mentioned line to, it will work:

(task.action in ('include', 'include_tasks') and task.evaluate_tags([], play_context.skip_tags, all_vars=all_vars))

[froebela]

We also hit the same issue. We heavily use dynamic task includes (combined with loops) and tags inside included tasks in order to limit the execution of tasks. Hence the new module "include_tasks" should also evaluate tags inside included tasks as the deprecated module "include" did. Otherwise the module "include_tasks" would be unusable for us.

We now want to go one step further and use dynamic role includes using the module "include_role". We performed some tests and hit the same issue there as well. So it would be nice, if the module "include_role" could be included in the problem resolution too.