# Gathering facts from hosts

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [April 13, 2021, 1:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972 "2021-04-13T13:26:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Werner\_Flamme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c68b51/32.png) [@Werner\_Flamme](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Werner_Flamme)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 1:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972/1 "2021-04-13T13:26:16Z")

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Hi list,

I wonder if there is a dynamic way of providing facts about hosts.

I only find the possibility to include facts that are hardcoded in one  
file (or multiple), but they are static, and maybe outdated. This I see  
on page  
\<[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user\_guide/playbooks\_vars\_facts.html#adding-custom-facts&gt;\](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_vars_facts.html#adding-custom-facts&gt;%5C).

Is there any way to extend facts with own facts that are rendered  
dynamically and delivered on-the-fly when the setup module runs?

Currently, I use facter on each host to provice those facts. Here, I can  
write scripts and put them in one certain directory, so they are  
executed each time all facts are gathered. This is a facter mechanism.

I'd like to abandon facter and stick with ansible's facts, but I did not  
find how to generate them on the fly.

Is it possible to have a playbook that has a first command like "run my  
facts script" (which outputs some data to /etc/ansible/facts.d/somefile)  
and then re-run the setup module as second step? Will the newly read  
facts be available? Or are there other best practices I didn't find yet?

Regards,  
Werner

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**Author:** ![Komal\_Suthar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/919ad9/32.png) [@Komal\_Suthar](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Komal_Suthar)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 2:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972/2 "2021-04-13T14:07:46Z")

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You can try to copy the facts dynamically, usjng the template module while running the playbook in the custom facts directory.

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**Author:** ![flowerysong1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@flowerysong1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/flowerysong1)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 3:10pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972/3 "2021-04-13T15:10:29Z")

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To quote the second paragraph in the section you just linked, “You can […] add dynamic facts by adding executable scripts to facts.d. For example, you can add a list of all users on a host to your facts by creating and running a script in facts.d.”

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972/4 "2021-04-13T17:00:33Z")

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You can use predefined vars that work like that, just have their  
template calculate these dynamic facts, since vars use lazy evaluation  
it does not matter when you define them, just when you use them (only  
after the expected facts are gathered).

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**Author:** ![Dennis\_McCarthy1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@Dennis\_McCarthy1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dennis_McCarthy1)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2021, 5:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/gathering-facts-from-hosts/34972/5 "2021-04-13T17:11:24Z")

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If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re creating facts, then you want to use the same just created facts in the same ansible run?

If this is the case, you can reload the facts and use them in the playbook using something like this:

- name: local facts  
debug: var=ansible\_local  
notify:

- reload facts

- name: reload facts  
setup: filter=ansible\_local

I did a talk on this at Ansible-London and you can watch the video here: [https://youtu.be/eNV4Z9o7-7s](https://youtu.be/eNV4Z9o7-7s)  
I have some code examples for this here: [https://github.com/dmccuk/local\_facts](https://github.com/dmccuk/local_facts)

**Or** , in light of Ansible not having a “facts store”, I’ve been working on an open-source project to provide just that called **Ansibledb**. It lets you go off to all your servers/VMs/Windows/network devices/etc, and it collects and stores all their facts (including custom facts) in a DB which you can then query (via the API) for specific facts within your environment or just create a dynamic inventory based on a specific fact which is actually quite a useful thing to be able to do.

This is the projects home:  
[https://github.com/apidb-io/ansibledb\_api\_opensource](https://github.com/apidb-io/ansibledb_api_opensource)

YT link with a demo: [https://youtu.be/1vLe7o0BooY](https://youtu.be/1vLe7o0BooY)

I hope this helps.