# Need yesterday's date in a playbook **URL:** \ **Category:** AWX Project\ **Created:** [May 28, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-yesterdays-date-in-a-playbook/35248 "2021-05-28T17:40:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kaleb\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kaleb\_S](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kaleb_S)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-yesterdays-date-in-a-playbook/35248/1 "2021-05-28T17:40:49Z")
I have a need to run a playbook using yesterday’s date as a variable in the playbook… I had a thought to have two scheduled jobs…one to set a fact with the date the job is running, then use that on the next scheduled job, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s the best way when really I just need to have a way to find yesterday’s date in an ansible playbook. ---
**Author:** ![Patrick\_Dreher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@Patrick\_Dreher](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Patrick_Dreher)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-yesterdays-date-in-a-playbook/35248/2 "2021-05-28T18:01:50Z")
first off this Google Group is about discussing AWX/Tower - not Ansible. having said that - how about using the shell module to run the date command and registering the output? - name: Get timestamp from the system shell: “date --date=‘1 days ago’” register: tstamp might need to change the command a bit to get the kind of date format you need. for wherever you’ll use it. ---
**Author:** ![Kaleb\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kaleb\_S](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kaleb_S)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 8:14pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/need-yesterdays-date-in-a-playbook/35248/3 "2021-05-28T20:14:52Z")
Thanks Patrick, I apologize for hijacking the group, but appreciate the pointers. Regards, Kaleb