False positive: hosts variable not defined

[jrglynn2]

Summary

False positive for undefined variable in hosts.

Issue Type

• Bug Report

OS / ENVIRONMENT

ansible-lint --version
ansible-lint 24.6.0 using ansible-core:2.17.1 ansible-compat:24.6.1 ruamel-yaml:0.18.6 ruamel-yaml-clib:0.2.8

• ansible installation method: pip

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

See issue #3229 - same question.

Desired Behavior

Answer was provided - #3229 (comment) - but the answer is to set a default value for hosts, which I would never want to do.

Desired behavior is that we can set something in ansible-lint config to tell ansible-lint to ignore any undefined variables - either altogether, or specifically in the hosts: line

Actual Behavior

ansible-lint highlights error - The field 'hosts' has an invalid value, which includes an undefined variable. The error was: 'hosts_used' is undefined

This isn't an error - all my playbooks are designed to feed in a host as needed, on purpose. So, I should be able to tell Lint to ignore this error. Desired behavior is that we can set something in ansible-lint config to tell ansible-lint to ignore any undefined variables - either altogether, or specifically in the hosts: line

[AtelierSnek]

Similarly, this issue does not go away even if the undefined part has a default and is a limiting filter:

hosts: "SOME_LOADBALANCERS:&{{ zone | default('SOME_ZONE') }}"

Side note: Yes I know you can do this with --limit but this is a variable that's guaranteed to be defined in our use-case, and having to define it in two variables or two places goes against consistent behaviour.

[jrglynn2]

Is there any ETA on when this might be added? Thanks!

[cavcrosby]

@jrglynn2 Hopefully PR #4393 will address this issue. It should be merged sometime soon, presuming things check out fine.