# How to force task to replay

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** ansible-project\
**Created:** [February 6, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295 "2013-02-06T03:05:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/1 "2013-02-06T03:05:07Z")

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All playbook actions are inteded to be idempotent and express desired  
state of a system, so each task is an expression of desired state.

get\_url will only download a file by default if the destination is missing.

If you want to download it every time, use thirsty=yes and it will  
download every time.

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**Author:** ![Francois\_Legrand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Francois\_Legrand](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Francois_Legrand)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/2 "2013-02-06T09:05:45Z")

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Thanks a lot for the thirsty=yes option.  
Actually it was my mistake because I had several tasks in the same file thus only the last task was executed !  
I realized that just after posting my message.  
F.

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**Author:** ![Jim\_Kleckner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/848f3c/32.png) [@Jim\_Kleckner](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Jim_Kleckner)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/3 "2013-02-07T20:13:18Z")

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It seems that you could create a play with an action to remove the state, true?  
Then execute that action, say “clearCachedData” ?

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**Author:** ![Dag\_Wieers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/45deac/32.png) [@Dag\_Wieers](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dag_Wieers)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 9:01am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/4 "2013-02-20T09:01:32Z")

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I hate to bring up semantics, but 'thirsty' is such a weird choice when 'force' would have been most people's first guess.

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**Author:** ![jpmens1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jpmens1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jpmens1)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 10:07am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/5 "2013-02-20T10:07:32Z")

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> I hate to bring up semantics, but 'thirsty' is such a weird choice  
> when 'force' would have been most people's first guess.

Indeed (and I didn't invent that). I'd appreciate a PR for using 'force'  
as an alias.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-JP

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**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-force-task-to-replay/12295/6 "2013-02-20T12:58:24Z")

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I'd appreciate one that made force the default and thirsty an alias.

Fix all references in all modules too.