Gather facts fails regardless if conditional is met for roles

[phil toohill]

##### Issue Type:

Bug Report

##### Ansible Version:

1.8.2

##### Environment:

OSX 10.8.5

##### Summary:

Fact gathering fails when cloud module deletes server and roles play is called with a when conditional.

##### Steps To Reproduce:

Assuming utilization of a cloud module such as 'rax', you can set the count to 0 to remove the servers and then call out to roles, as such:

```

- name: Build an exact count of cloud servers with incremented names

  hosts: local

  gather_facts: False

  tasks:

    - name: Server build requests

      local_action:

        module: rax

        credentials: ~/.raxpub

        name: test%03d.example.org

        flavor: performance1-1

        image: ubuntu-1204-lts-precise-pangolin

        state: present

        count: 0

        exact_count: yes

        group: webservers

        wait: yes

      register: rax

- name: Setup nginx

  user: root

  hosts: webservers

  vars:

   operation: "{{ wsoperation }}"

  roles:

    - { role: nginx, when: operation == 'create' }

```

##### Expected Results:

It would expected that the when clause should trigger prior/during the gather facts call thus adhering to the conditional and passing tests.

I call this a bug because I assume no operations should happen for a play unless the conditional is met, this includes fact gathering. 

Besides having a separate playbook with duplicated server logic, which defeats the purpose of this modules benefits, I do not see a proper work around. 

##### Actual Results:

Gather facts is triggered before the when operation is analyzed causing failure.

```

fatal: [webser-backend01] => SSH encountered an unknown error during the connection

```

This was closed as 'not a bug', anyone have suggested work around?

[Matt Martz]

So roles are evaluated after the top level portions of the play.

I would do something such as using add_host to add deleted servers to an in memory group that you could use for exclusion later.  Such as something like:

- hosts: local

  gather_facts: False

  tasks:

    - name: Create or delete servers

      rax:

          [module stuff here that deletes servers]

          group: webservers

      register: rax_results

    - name: Add created servers to webservers group

      add_host:

          hostname: "{{ item.name }}"

          ansible_ssh_host: "{{ item.rax_accessipv4 }}"

          ansible_ssh_pass: "{{ item.rax_adminpass }}"

          groups: webservers

      with_items: rax_results.success

      when: rax_results.action == 'create'

    - name: Add deleted servers to deleted group for later exclusions

      add_host:

          hostname: "{{ item.name }}"

          groups: deleted

      with_items: rax_results.success

      when: rax_results.action == 'delete'

- hosts: webservers!deleted

  [other stuff here]

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Matt Martz
@sivel
sivel.net

[phil toohill]

This is a great tip! Seems to be working as expected now,

Thank you