Easiest way to exit Ansible playbook while debugging

Question

Say I'm debugging an Ansible playbook and want to quit after a given task (and not run through all of the following tasks). Is there any one-line magic command available, or do I have to manually create an exit/assert task?

From the ansible-playbook manual, I see that there is a --start-at-task=START_AT flag, but I don't see anything like an 'end-at' counterpart.

Answer 1

Using - pause: might suit.

Pauses playbook execution for a set amount of time, or until a prompt is acknowledged. All parameters are optional. The default behavior is to pause with a prompt. You can use ctrl+c if you wish to advance a pause earlier than it is set to expire or if you need to abort a playbook run entirely. To continue early: press ctrl+c and then c. To abort a playbook: press ctrl+c and then a.

http://docs.ansible.com/pause_module.html

Or just a straight - fail: if you will certainly not want to continue.

If you want a block of tasks to execute, you can use tags and --with-tags:. Ansible v2 will have proper code blocks so you can use a single when: for multiple tasks.

Answer 2

- meta: end_play

end_play (added in 2.2) causes the play to end without failing the host.

Answer 3

ansible-playbook --step will let you confirm each task you want to run and stop execution whenever you want.