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Ubuntu – Passing a dictionary in Azure DevOps pipeline templates

In an Azure DevOps pipeline template I need to pass variables as a dictionary to another template which will use an ansible task to process all keys in the dictionary.

The type: object seems appropriate, but I’m looking for a working example.

main-template.yml

trigger:
- main

stages:
- stage: Deploy
  jobs:
  - job: DeployJob
    pool:
      vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
    steps:
    - template: ansible-template.yml
      parameters:
        ansibleVars:
          var1: value1
          var2: value2

ansible-template.yml

parameters:
- name: ansibleVars
  type: object
  default: {}

jobs:
- job: AnsibleJob
  pool:
    vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
  steps:
  - task: UsePythonVersion@0
    inputs:
      versionSpec: '3.x'
      addToPath: true

  - script: |
      python -m pip install ansible-core
    displayName: 'Install Ansible'

  - script: |
      echo "${{ parameters.ansibleVars  }}" > vars.yml
    displayName: 'Create vars file'

  - task: Ansible@0
    displayName: 'Run playbook'
    inputs:
      ansibleInterface: 'agentMachine'
      playbookPathOnAgentMachine: './ansible/playbook.yml'
      inventoriesAgentMachine: 'file'
      inventoryFileOnAgentMachine: './ansible/inventory/hosts'
      args: -vv -e @vars.yaml
    failOnStdErr: false
Tags:

2

Answers


  1. 0

    According to the documentation, you can use vars from a JSON or YAML file:

    ansible-playbook release.yml --extra-vars "@some_file.json"
ansible-playbook release.yml --extra-vars "@some_file.yaml"

    In your pipeline you can use convertToJson to convert a parameter to a json string and then generate a json file and use it in your Ansible@0 task.

    Example

    parameters:
  - name: ansibleVars
    type: object
    default:
      version: 1.0.0
      other_varialbe: foo
  - name: varsFile
    type: string
    default: $(Agent.TempDirectory)/ansible-vars.json

trigger: none

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

steps:
  - script: |
      echo ${ANSIBLE_VARS} > ${ANSIBLE_VARS_FILE}
      cat ${ANSIBLE_VARS_FILE}
    displayName: Create json variables file
    env:
      ANSIBLE_VARS_FILE: ${{ parameters.varsFile }}
      ANSIBLE_VARS: ${{ convertToJson(parameters.ansibleVars) }}
  
  - task: Ansible@0
    displayName: 'Run playbook'
    inputs:
      ansibleInterface: 'agentMachine'
      playbookPathOnAgentMachine: './ansible/playbook.yml'
      inventoriesAgentMachine: 'file'
      inventoryFileOnAgentMachine: './ansible/inventory/hosts'
      args: -vv -e @${{ parameters.varsFile }}  # <-------------- use generated json file
    failOnStdErr: false

    Please note I’m assigning the json string to a task environment variable instead of using it directly in the script body – this way I don’t need to bother escaping quotes and other special characters:

      - script: |
      # ...
    env:
      ANSIBLE_VARS: ${{ convertToJson(parameters.ansibleVars) }}
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  2. 0

    You can reference the sample below to pass dictionary into the template YAML:

    1. The template YAML
    # templates/steps.yml

parameters:
- name: vars
  type: object
  default: []

steps:
- powershell: |
    Write-Host "var1 = $env:var1"
    Write-Host "var2 = $env:var2"
    Write-Host "var3 = $env:var3"
  displayName: 'Show all vars'
  env:
    ${{ parameters.vars }}

- ${{ each var in parameters.vars }}:
  - powershell: |
      Write-Host "Key = ${{ var.Key }}"
      Write-Host "Value = ${{ var.Value }}"
    displayName: 'Show var - ${{ var.Key }}'
    1. The main YAML.
    # azure-pipelines.yml

steps:
- template: templates/steps.yml
  parameters:
    vars:
      var1: valu1
      var2: valu2
      var3: valu3

    enter image description here

    If you want to pass all the key-value pairs to the args field of the Ansible@0 task, you can set the template like as below.

    # templates/steps.yml

parameters:
- name: vars
  type: object
  default: []

steps:
- powershell: Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=argVar;]empty"
  displayName: 'Set argVar'

- ${{ each var in parameters.vars }}:
  - powershell: |
      Write-Host "Key = ${{ var.Key }}"
      Write-Host "Value = ${{ var.Value }}"
      if ("$(argVar)" -ne "empty" ) {
        Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=argVar;]$(argVar) ${{ var.Key }}=${{ var.Value }}"
      }
      else {
        Write-Host "##vso[task.setvariable variable=argVar;]${{ var.Key }}=${{ var.Value }}"
      }
    displayName: 'Show var - ${{ var.Key }}'

- powershell: Write-Host "$(argVar)"
  displayName: 'Show var argVar'

- task: Ansible@0
  displayName: 'Run playbook'
  inputs:
    playbookPathOnAgentMachine: path/to/playbook.yml
    inventoriesAgentMachine: file
    inventoryFileOnAgentMachine: path/to/hosts
    args: '$(argVar)'

    enter image description here

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