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Hands-on Lab·Ansible

Ansible Loops and loop_control

One task with a loop replaces five near-identical tasks, and the loop is where playbooks stop being scripts. This covers a plain list, a list of dictionaries, looping over what a previous loop registered, the `label` that stops the output becoming unreadable, and `until`/`retries` for something that is not ready yet.

Plays and Playbooks Guide 13 of 45 Intermediate

Written against the versions above. `loop:` is the current keyword. `with_items` and the other `with_*` forms still work and are not slated for removal, but they are no longer recommended and every current example uses `loop`. Where `with_items` flattened nested lists automatically, `loop` does not - use the `flatten` filter if you need that.

One managed node. A loop runs per host, so a second would duplicate every result.
Server NameIP AddressOSRolesCPURAMHDD
ANS-CTL01192.168.0.36Ubuntu 26.04 LTSAnsible Control Node2 Core3 GB50 GB
ANS-A01192.168.0.37Ubuntu 26.04 LTSManaged Node (group: web)2 Core3 GB50 GB

Before you start

  1. The configuration this guide assumes

  2. A loop over a list

  3. A loop over dictionaries

  4. Looping over what you registered

  5. Retrying until something is true

Official sources

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