Accessing build environment variables from Playbook using Ansible Plugin

[Ricardo Hernandez]

Hi,

Starting from version 0.5 of the Ansible Plugin the build environment variables are available during ansible execution. 

I'm currently trying to get the job workspace path inside my playbook (which I provide using job DSL) the following way:

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:
    - command: echo "$PATH"
      register: default_path
    - command: echo "$WORKSPACE"
      register: jenkins_job_workspace

However, WORKSPACE doesn't seem to be defined, as shown in the output:

TASK [command] ***************************************************************** 
changed: [10.100.198.9] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "$PATH"], "delta": "0:00:00.002428", "end": "2016-07-12 10:49:02.252685", "rc": 0, "start": "2016-07-12 10:49:02.250257", "stderr": "", "stdout": "/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin", "stdout_lines": ["/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin"], "warnings": []} 
TASK [command] ***************************************************************** 
changed: [10.100.198.9] => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["echo", "$WORKSPACE"], "delta": "0:00:00.002479", "end": "2016-07-12 10:49:02.470880", "rc": 0, "start": "2016-07-12 10:49:02.468401", "stderr": "", "stdout": "$WORKSPACE", "stdout_lines": ["$WORKSPACE"], "warnings": []}

Is this the correct way to access them?

[jcsirot]

Hello,

Yes, the variables are available as env vars inside the process running ansible. If you want to access these env vars within an ansible playbook you should use the lookup plugin as showed here in the ansible FAQ: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/faq.html#how-do-i-access-shell-environment-variables

You should then adapt your playbook (I tested and it works for me)

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:


    - command: echo "{{ lookup('env','PATH') }}"
      register: default_path
    - command: echo "{{ lookup('env','WORKSPACE') }}"
      register: jenkins_job_workspace

Hope it helps.

[Ricardo Hernandez]

Thank you for pointing it out. It was really helpful.