existing_files

Ansible lookup plugin that, given a list files and paths, returns all the ones that exist. This is useful to avoid the pattern of having to stat a series of files to check if they exist before operating on them.

Heavily derived from Ansible's first_found lookup plugin, so all the rules that it applies to files and paths also apply here.

Example usage

- name: read vars from all files that actually exist
  include_vars: "{{ item }}"
  loop: "{{ query('existing_files', params) }}"
  vars:
    params:
      files:
        - '{{ ansible_os_distribution }}.yml'
        - '{{ ansible_os_family }}.yml'
        - default.yml
      paths:
        - 'vars'