# question about loop/with\_items

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [May 11, 2018, 7:33am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509 "2018-05-11T07:33:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Edmund\_Cheng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Edmund\_Cheng](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Edmund_Cheng)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 7:33am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509/1 "2018-05-11T07:33:00Z")

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hi,

say i have in hosts file 2 nodes.

[nodes]  
server1  
server2

in a playbook, we do some loop for tasks.

- hosts: nodes  
  
with\_items : [‘apple’,‘banana’]

ansible will run it like in the below order:

server1 : apple  
server2: apple  
server1: banana  
server2: banana

what if i want to run in this order?

server1: apple  
server1: banana  
server2: apple  
server2: banana

Is there a good approach for this?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 8:11am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509/2 "2018-05-11T08:11:07Z")

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Check out serial, serial: 1 on the play will give you that.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Edmund\_Cheng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Edmund\_Cheng](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Edmund_Cheng)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509/3 "2018-05-11T08:39:25Z")

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Hey Kai,

thanks… do you know why if its 1 server at a time(serial: 1), the play will behave this way?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kai\_Stian\_Olstad](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Kai_Stian_Olstad)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2018, 9:24am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/question-about-loop-with-items/27509/4 "2018-05-11T09:24:51Z")

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The documentation explains this pretty well  
[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user\_guide/playbooks\_delegation.html](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_delegation.html)