Why I cannot prompt for a variable that will be shared by multiple plays (ansible 1.6.5)

Question

I have distilled a playbook that has three plays. The goal is to collect the database password from a prompt in one play and then use the same password in the other two plays.

Answer 1

I have found the following workaround using set_fact to assign the variable entered by a user into a variable with playbook scope. It seems that var_prompt variables are not like facts and other variables, its scope is restricted in the play that prompts for them not the entire playbook. I am not sure if this is a feature or a bug.

---

- name: database password
  hosts:
    - webservers
    - dbservers
  vars_prompt:
    - name: "db_password"
      prompt: "Enter Database Password for databse user root"
      default: "root"
  tasks:
    - set_fact:
        db_root_password: "{{db_password}}"

- hosts: dbservers
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}


- hosts: webservers
  tasks:
    - command: echo {{db_root_password | mandatory }}