Using with_dict but skipping certain items

Hi,

I am new to Ansible and am having difficulty in understanding how a loop created with a ‘with_dict’ directive can be filtered based upon values within the dictionary.

For instance, I want a dictionary of users that need to be put into a specific state, e.g.:

users:

testuser1: {state: absent, public_key_file: “…/keys/dev-env.pub”}

testuser2: {state: present, public_key_file: “…/keys/dev-env.pub”}

I then have a task that loops over this map:

  • name: Manage Users
    user:

name={{ item.key }}
state={{ item.value.state }}
remove=yes
with_dict: users | default({})

This will add or remove users depending on the ‘users’ dictionary (e.g. testuser1 will be removed and testuser2 created)

I now want to use the same data definition to loop over users and put any authorized keys in place:

  • name: Deploy User Keys
    sudo: yes

authorized_key:
user={{ item.key }}
key=“{{ lookup(‘file’, item.value.public_key_file) }}”
with_dict: users | default({})

this would work apart from the fact that the ‘testuser1’ home dir no longer exists.

What I would like to do is to skip users with a ‘state’ of ‘absent’. Is there a way to do this or am I going about this in completely the wrong way?

Thanks,
Dave.