# Tags as variable inside of playbook **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [March 15, 2016, 12:08pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871 "2016-03-15T12:08:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![azaghal](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/azaghal/32/4743_2.png) [@azaghal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/azaghal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 12:08pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/1 "2016-03-15T12:08:54Z")
Hello folks, Is it possible to use tags as a variable inside of playbook? Specifically, I would like to have a condition to execute certain task only if a tag has been defined. I am aware this can be done with an --extra-vars option + checking for variable instead, but I wanted to see if I could abuse the tags system a bit to make the syntax less verbose/clearer. Best regards ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Biancaniello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dec6dc/32.png) [@Mike\_Biancaniello](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mike_Biancaniello)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/2 "2016-03-15T16:34:25Z")
This is probably very terrible, but… ` pre\_tasks: - name: set tag as fact set\_fact: myvar = mytag tags: mytag ` I don’t think there is an ‘ansible\_tags’ var passed to the playbook. I haven’t looked, but It is possible that an action\_plugin might have access to that (from **main** import cli), so you can create a module that sets ‘ansible\_tags’ as an ansible fact. ---
**Author:** ![jean-yves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a587f6/32.png) [@jean-yves](https://forum.ansible.com/u/jean-yves)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/3 "2016-03-15T17:15:32Z")
If I understand correctly what you want... ansible-playbook myplaybook.yml --tags=myspecialtag is what you're looking for... A tag can be use in more than one task... The doc : [http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks\_tags.html](http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/playbooks_tags.html) Regards, ---
**Author:** ![azaghal](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/azaghal/32/4743_2.png) [@azaghal](https://forum.ansible.com/u/azaghal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/4 "2016-03-15T17:23:28Z")
Thanks for the input, but that is something that would solve my requirement only partially. What I wanted to do was more along the lines of (as someone has already pointed out, tags do not seem to be exposed in a run): - name: Run this only and only if the tag was defined   debug: msg="I am tagged, therefore I run"   when: myspecialtag in ansible\_tags   tags:     - myspecialtag For now I think I would need to stick to the --extra-vars in combination with --tags. Perhaps a better description of what I want to do is to be able to rerun handlers only as needed in order to have a way to clean-up certain broken runs ("meta"-code provided below): - name: Run handlers only   include: ../handlers/main.yml   when: handlers in ansible\_tags   tags:     - handlers Best regards ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Biancaniello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dec6dc/32.png) [@Mike\_Biancaniello](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Mike_Biancaniello)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/5 "2016-03-15T19:40:13Z")
It sounds like you want to instruct a task to execute ONLY if a tag is present (skip if tag not set). I’ve seen that request before, but no idea if it may or may not be implemented. I wonder if a vars\_plugin or lookup\_plugin might work… would this work? # file ./lookup\_plugins/get\_tags.py ` from **future** import (absolute\_import, division, print\_function) from ansible.plugins.lookup import LookupBase from **main** import cli class LookupModule(LookupBase): def run(self, terms=‘’, \*\*kwargs): tags = cli.get\_opt(‘tags’).split(‘,’) return [tags] ` # file ./stuff.yml ` ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Lamb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Brian\_Lamb](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Lamb)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2023, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/6 "2023-06-14T17:54:35Z")
This looked promising, except that cli is not available on my ansible v 2.14.2 using python 3.11.2 `Error was a , original message: cannot import name ''cli'' from '' __main__'' (/usr/bin/ansible-playbook)'` ---
**Author:** ![Brian\_Lamb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Brian\_Lamb](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Lamb)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2023, 6:05pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/7 "2023-06-14T18:05:11Z")
A Magic var has been added, you can use ansible\_run\_tags now. [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.5/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.5.rst#minor-changes-4](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/stable-2.5/changelogs/CHANGELOG-v2.5.rst#minor-changes-4) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/original/1X/1882d9a01da5d8996a862359b0913cc568a39b84.svg) [@system](https://forum.ansible.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2023, 6:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/tags-as-variable-inside-of-playbook/20871/8 "2023-06-14T18:11:06Z")
Use the never tag: tags: never, mytag This ensures the task is never selected UNLESS you specifically target a defined tag.