# How to retrieve arguments to ansible-playbook from ansible?

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-retrieve-arguments-to-ansible-playbook-from-ansible/33404>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [July 15, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-retrieve-arguments-to-ansible-playbook-from-ansible/33404 "2020-07-15T14:04:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dick\_Visser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@Dick\_Visser](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dick_Visser)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-retrieve-arguments-to-ansible-playbook-from-ansible/33404/1 "2020-07-15T14:04:17Z")

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Hi

As part of our deployment we are saving a file  
/etc/deployment\_status.json onto remote nodes:

&nbsp;&nbsp;vars:  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;deployment\_status:  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;version: "{{ our\_version }}"  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;date: "{{ ansible\_date\_time.iso8601 }}"  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;deployer: "{{ lookup('env', 'USER') }}"  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;ansible: "{{ lookup('pipe', 'ansible --version') }}"

&nbsp;&nbsp;pre\_tasks:  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;- name: Write deployment status to /etc/deployment\_status.json  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;copy:  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;content: "{{ deployment\_status | to\_nice\_json }}"  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;dest: /etc/deployment\_status.json  
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;tags: always,deployment\_status

This has proven to be helpful.  
Now I would like to also include information about how  
ansible-playbook was invoked, for instance which tags were used, or  
what hosts the deployment was limited to.  
Is there any way of knowing what arguments ansible-playbook was run  
with, from within ansible?

thx!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nuno\_Jordao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a4c791/32.png) [@Nuno\_Jordao](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Nuno_Jordao)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 3:28pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-retrieve-arguments-to-ansible-playbook-from-ansible/33404/2 "2020-07-15T15:28:22Z")

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Hello,

Is this what you are looking for?

[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference\_appendices/special\_variables.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/reference_appendices/special_variables.html)

Nuno Jordão

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dick\_Visser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d9b06d/32.png) [@Dick\_Visser](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Dick_Visser)\
**Post date:** [July 15, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/how-to-retrieve-arguments-to-ansible-playbook-from-ansible/33404/3 "2020-07-15T16:15:07Z")

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Yes, that goes a long way.  
But I realized we call ansible-playbook from a shell wrapper, so I  
used "${@}" in there instead.

thx!