Where to put templates/files outside of a role

Archives Ansible Project
1

Hi,

I am writing a role for varnish. Because Varnish configuration language is
a "real" language I can and will not restrict what configuration a user can
provide. To make it as flexible as possible I planned to use a variable with an
empty default. So a user of my role can provide a complete VCL in a playbook
like this:

- name: Configure varnish host
  hosts: 'proxy'
  sudo: True
  vars:
    varnish_vcl_content: |
        backend default {
            .host = foo
            .port = 80
        }
  roles:
  - { role: varnish }

Now my questions:

1. Do you think, this is a good practice?

2. Is there a recommended directory for templates outside of role directories?
   Where would you put it? A user can fill the variable like this:

   varnish_vcl_content: "{{ lookup('template', 'default.vcl') }}"

2

Lookup plugins will search for relative paths by default in a role's
files/ directory and then in a play's files/ directory.

Also you probably want to just use the file lookup plugin unless you
are inserting jinja statements inside the default.vcl file.