# AWX and group\_vars, host\_vars from external source

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-and-group-vars-host-vars-from-external-source/33087>\
**Category:** AWX Project\
**Tags:** awx\
**Created:** [June 4, 2020, 3:31am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-and-group-vars-host-vars-from-external-source/33087 "2020-06-04T03:31:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Onno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dec6dc/32.png) [@Onno](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Onno)\
**Post date:** [June 4, 2020, 3:31am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-and-group-vars-host-vars-from-external-source/33087/1 "2020-06-04T03:31:02Z")

</div>

I am using an Git repo as a source of my inventory. This repo also contains group\_vars and host\_vars directories. When using regular Ansible, Ansible will look for those directories in the location where the hosts file.

With Ansible via AWX I have the option of using an “external source” for inventory. When I add the URL of my Git repo I can select the host file or root. I tried a configuration with a host file in the root and a configuration with the host file in a sub directory. With both options the directories `group_vars` and `host_vars` are ignored as far as I can tell.

The documentation is a bit vague on the issue.

> Keeping variable data along with the objects in Tower (see the inventory editor) is encouraged, rather than using group\_vars/ and host\_vars/. If you use dynamic inventory sources, Tower can sync such variables with the database as long as the Overwrite Variables option is not set. [26. Best Practices — Ansible Tower User Guide v3.7.0](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible-tower/latest/html/userguide/best_practices.html#ansible-file-and-directory-structure)

I don’t see AWX retrieve those vars? Variables in `group_vars` and / or `host_vars`? Or is this sync ability limited to the host file? If it is possible, how should this work?