How to run only one task in ansible playbook?

Question

Is there a way to only run one task in ansible playbook?

For example, in roles/hadoop_primary/tasks/hadoop_master.yml. I have "start hadoop jo

Answer 1

I would love the ability to use a role as a collection of tasks such that, in my playbook, I can choose which subset of tasks to run. Unfortunately, the playbook can only load them all in and then you have to use the --tags option on the cmdline to choose which tasks to run. The problem with this is that all of the tasks will run unless you remember to set --tags or --skip-tags.

I have set up some tasks, however, with a when: clause that will only fire if a var is set.

e.g.

# role/stuff/tasks/main.yml
- name: do stuff
  when: stuff|default(false)

Now, this task will not fire by default, but only if I set the stuff=true

$ ansible-playbook -e '{"stuff":true}'

or in a playbook:

roles:
- {"role":"stuff", "stuff":true}