Variable Passing Issue in Repeated Role Invocation – `components` Undefined in Second Role Call

[jijeesh]

🐞 Defect Description

When invoking the same role (test) multiple times in an Ansible playbook using the roles: keyword, variables such as components and operation are not passed correctly in the second invocation. This results in undefined errors inside the role.

Example:

- name: Role Testing variable passing
  hosts: all
  remote_user: root
  any_errors_fatal: true

  roles:
    - role: test
      vars:
        components: ["rep"]
        operation: "start"

- name: Role Testing2 variable passing
  hosts: all
  remote_user: root
  any_errors_fatal: true

  roles:
    - role: test
      vars:
        components: ["rep"]
        operation: "start"

In the second block, components and operation are not accessible inside the test role.

Workaround:
Replacing roles: with include_role: resolves the issue, and variables are passed correctly.

---

💼 Justification for Business Impact

• Causes unexpected behavior and runtime errors during playbook execution.
• Breaks modularity and reusability of roles.
• Increases debugging time and complexity for developers.
• Impacts automation reliability in production environments.

---

🧪 Environment Details

• Ansible Version: 9.7.0
• Ansible Core Version: 2.16.8
• Base Image: docker.io/library/alpine:3.20

---

✅ Suggested Action

• Investigate variable scoping behavior in repeated roles: declarations.
• Consider switching to include_role for dynamic variable passing.
• Document this behavior in the role usage guidelines to prevent future issues.

---

[ansible-documentation-bot]

Thanks for your Ansible docs contribution! We talk about Ansible documentation on Matrix at #docs:ansible.im if you ever want to join us and chat about the docs! We meet on Matrix every Tuesday. See the Ansible calendar for meeting details. We welcome additions to our weekly agenda items too. You can add the dawgs-meeting tag to a forum topic to bring it up at the next meeting.