# nested roles **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [June 17, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750 "2022-06-17T20:26:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jcpetro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jcpetro](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jcpetro)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/1 "2022-06-17T20:26:29Z")
I have a question regarding nested roles. Back Story: I am doing some code reviews for some ansible code a coworker has done. I noticed that they are importing other roles into the role they are working on. Question: I feel like this is not a good idea, that dependencies should be taken care of at the playbook level, but I am having a difficult time justifying why nesting roles is not necessarily a good idea, so I am looking for some feedback to help me here. I welcome your thoughts on this… –John ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_Manno](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/paul_manno/32/2804_2.png) [@Paul\_Manno](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Paul_Manno)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2022, 3:33pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/2 "2022-06-18T15:33:41Z")
Hi John, Per ansible doc, you should not import a role within another role. Instead, you should use the built in dependencies model. Importing a role in the tasks of another role is a bad idea because it reduces the portability of the role. You’d have to guarantee that the role you’re using and the role you import are both present in your roles dir. The dependency model ansible provides solves this problem by leveraging the ansible galaxy command to pull dependencies from remote repositories. Paul – You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Ansible Project” group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to . To view this discussion on the web visit . ---
**Author:** ![flowerysong1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecae2f/32.png) [@flowerysong1](https://forum.ansible.com/u/flowerysong1)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 4:45am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/3 "2022-06-19T04:45:26Z")
I highly disagree with this, and would be interested in a pointer to the documentation that you say claims “importing a role in the tasks of another role is a bad idea” since I’ve never seen that in the official Ansible documentation. Explicitly importing or including the role provides more control over execution order, and ansible-galaxy can still handle dependency install by listing them in meta/requirements.yml ([https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/galaxy/user\_guide.html#using-meta-requirements-yml](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/galaxy/user_guide.html#using-meta-requirements-yml)) ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_Manno](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/paul_manno/32/2804_2.png) [@Paul\_Manno](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Paul_Manno)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/4 "2022-06-19T14:29:47Z")
Hello flowerysong, I’m sure it was the case, at least with older versions of ansible, that the doc included a statement that roles should not be included from other roles and that the dependency mechanism should be used instead. Looking at the link you posted, that feature has only been available since v2.10. I’m using AWX, running 2.9, and the official RedHat ansible tower is only up to ansible 2.9.27. That suggests that the feature you’re referencing wouldn’t even work in Tower or AWX? Are you using tower and/or AWX and are you able to use that feature? Another question world be about dependencies for the roles you import because older roles may still use the older meta/main.yml which would not be evaluated on role import? So maybe we are finding even more reason to not import roles in roles due to backwards compatibility issues? ---
**Author:** ![jcpetro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jcpetro](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jcpetro)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/5 "2022-06-20T01:23:02Z")
Paul, Thanks for that feedback. Definitely some things to think about here for sure. I thought I had remembered reading somewhere that is wasn’t a great idea, and was not able to figure out where I had read that so I am glad you brought up that it wasn’t recommended with earlier versions. My thought, is that if a role is being imported inside a role to make sure that dependencies were met, that it might be better done in the master playbook, instead of the role to make debugging easier. I am sure there are other reasons too but that is one of the first things that came to mind. –John ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/6 "2022-06-21T14:38:31Z")
@Paul Mano the features @flowersong mentions are for installing, not running the role. There has never been advice to use dependencies over importing a role. I have personally always advised the opposite, I created import\_role/include\_role because the dependency mechanism is very counterintuitive. I think you are mistaking the misuse of include (used as current include\_tasks) or include\_vars targeting 'files from a role' vs importing the role itself, this WAS advised against (still is). 2.9 is EoL as is 2.10, the import\_role/include\_role features were added in 2.4. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_Manno](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/paul_manno/32/2804_2.png) [@Paul\_Manno](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Paul_Manno)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 2:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/7 "2022-06-21T14:52:06Z")
Hi Brian, Wow… I could have swore I read that you should never import a role from another role: That is to say that in a role’s tasks/main.yml to do import\_role for some other role. This made sense to me since a role, I thought, was supposed to only do one thing and do it well. Importing one role from another would seem to inherently do more than one thing, and chaining roles like that could exhibit unpredictable behavior. On the other hand having a playbook that chains import\_role, of course, is fine and I get that. So are you saying that importing a role from another role is an OK thing to do? Paul ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 3:44pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/8 "2022-06-21T15:44:10Z")
I prefer to keep things simple and obvious, I would keep role imports to the play, not everyone agrees and many use complex role hierarchies. If it is a choice between setting 'dependencies' (which imports a role from a role) and import\_role, I always advise to use the latter. reasons against dependencies: - it is hidden in the 'meta' so it adds 'yet another file' to find out the task flow - they execute prior to the role with a lot of rules to which variables and keywords are inherited - the dependent is also the parent, which many find counterintuitive - the import always happens, conditionals are appended to the tasks/handlers on execution with import/include: - inheritance is clear, set at the time of import/inclusion (import directly, include via apply option) - with include\_role you can avoid importing at all, import\_role behaves closer to roles:/dependencies - finer control on when to execute - you can dynamically choose the role and/or entry points for the role (tasks\_from/vars\_from/etc) Currently the only advantage of dependency over include/import is that it is both runtime and install time so you don't need to add the role to 'requirements' file, which can be dealt with if we automate requirements file creation (some issues with dynamic role selection, but should work for static references). ---
**Author:** ![jcpetro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jcpetro](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jcpetro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/9 "2022-06-21T19:26:06Z")
@Brian Coca, So what you are suggesting, when you say you “prefer to keep things simple and obvious” is that you suggest keeping the import statements in the playbook that calls the role, not really inside the role itself, is that what I am understanding you to mean by that? –John ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 10:12pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/10 "2022-06-21T22:12:23Z")
Yes, but that is not a commonly held view, why 'dependencies' exist, so I suggest using import/include\_role instead ... if i cannot convince people of avoiding role 'trees'. ---
**Author:** ![jcpetro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@jcpetro](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jcpetro)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2022, 10:20pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/nested-roles/36750/11 "2022-06-21T22:20:04Z")
That’s really where I come down. I’d rather see all dependancies in the playbook, to avoid potential problems down the road.