Ansible remote_user vs ansible_user

Question

The question is simple: what is the difference between ansible_user (former ansible_ssh_user) and remote_user in Ansible, besides that

Answer 1

One difference between remote_user and ansible_user:
When you run a role with different users from a playbook, e.g.:

- name: Apply user configuration to user root 
  hosts: all
  remote_user: root
- name: Apply user configuration to user murphy
  hosts: all
  remote_user: murphy

Then you can perform a conditional task for a distinct user by using "when: ansible_user == .." but not with "when: remote_user == ..". e.g.:

- name: Add user murphy to wheel group
  user:
    name: murphy
    groups: wheel
    append: yes
  when: ansible_user == "root"