# How to check if a role changed something inside a play? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Developer\ **Created:** [January 26, 2022, 6:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-check-if-a-role-changed-something-inside-a-play/36254 "2022-01-26T18:59:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Richard\_Megginson](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/richard_megginson/32/4540_2.png) [@Richard\_Megginson](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Richard_Megginson)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 6:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-check-if-a-role-changed-something-inside-a-play/36254/1 "2022-01-26T18:59:22Z")
Is there some way inside of a playbook to see if a role changed something? The use case is this: tests\_of\_my\_role.yml: - name: call role to see if working include\_role: name: my\_role vars: - my role vars - set\_fact: \_\_role\_changes\_before: “{{ \_tqm.\_stats.changes }}” - name: call role again to see if idempotent include\_role: name: my\_role vars: - my role vars - assert: that: \_\_role\_changes\_before == \_tqm.\_stats.changes msg: Role is not idempotent! I’m assuming it would be possible to keep track of the changes with a callback plugin, but I’m not sure how the callback would make the “num\_of\_changes” variable available at the playbook scope. ---
**Author:** ![sivel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/sivel/32/1198_2.png) [@sivel](https://forum.ansible.com/u/sivel)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 7:06pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-check-if-a-role-changed-something-inside-a-play/36254/2 "2022-01-26T19:06:44Z")
Not really. I did a PoC of an action plugin that could do this, but we never really moved forward with it, and I don’t know where the code is. It basically executed the role 2 times from the action plugin, with a custom callback, and then reported whether the role had produced a change.