# Stopping at first change

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/stopping-at-first-change/30558>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [June 13, 2019, 10:21am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/stopping-at-first-change/30558 "2019-06-13T10:21:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andy\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Andy\_Smith](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Andy_Smith)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2019, 10:21am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/stopping-at-first-change/30558/1 "2019-06-13T10:21:43Z")

</div>

Hi,

Is there a way, without modifying the playbooks, to make  
ansible-playbook stop at/after the first change but carry on through  
any tasks that don't make changes?

My intent is to run it in --check and --diff mode against  
infrastructure to see that all the nodes are correctly configured,  
but if there is any change outstanding it's going to stop and show  
me what the change is without doing it.

I know I can step through every action choosing to do it or not, but  
this steps through even actions that are not going to make any  
change.

Just --check by itself of course will prevent any change being made  
so that is the nearest thing to a solution I have so far, but it  
carries on through the whole playbook. There's pages of output when  
in this instance my main interest is "is there any change to be made  
at all?"

Thanks,  
Andy