I am seriously struggling with trying to include yml files in my top level play
I have prereqcheck.yml in which I want to set the host for the rest of the included files to use
So you have 2 types of includes, plays or task lists, you are mixing play level directives in an include inside a play, this is not permitted.
An include inside a play can ONLY have a list of tasks, you are putting vars: and tasks: directives which implies play. In >=2.0 vars can now be part of any task, so you can put it with the include itself.
- name: Perform all prerequisite checks
hosts: localhost
tasks: - include: prereqcheck_directories.yml
vars:
directories:
- directory: “/opt/test”
- directory: “/etc”
- directory: “/xyz”
oh man - thank you 
I wonder that this works, with having the same 'key' called directory
three times. I am not an expert but I would have guessed this should
cause all kinds of trouble, because how can you distinguish between
these three entries?
Johannes
its actually a list of dictionaries with single key
top:
- dictionary: ‘stuff’
top[0][‘dictionary’] == ‘stuff’