Feat: Add callback plugin print_task

[demonpig]

Prints task snippet to job output.

SUMMARY

I figured this might be useful for debugging purposes when executing playbooks. All this callback plugin is doing, is printing out the task snippet as it would show within the playbook. See example below.

Playbook:

---

- name: Test
  hosts: all
  gather_facts: false

  tasks:
    - name: TEST | HEllo
      ansible.builtin.shell: echo {{ item }}
      when: false
      async: 10
      poll: 1
      loop:
        - 1
        - 2
        - 3
    # - name: Command 2
      # async: 1
      # ansible.builtin.shell: |
      #   echo hello
      #   exit 1

    - ansible.builtin.shell: echo hello

    - ansible.builtin.ping:

Command:

ansible-playbook -i inventory playbook.yml -v

Output:

PLAY [Test] ********************************************************************

TASK [TEST | HEllo] ************************************************************

- name: TEST | HEllo
  ansible.builtin.shell: echo {{ item }}
  when: false
  async: 10
  poll: 1
  loop:
  - 1
  - 2
  - 3

skipping: [localhost] => (item=1)  => {"ansible_loop_var": "item", "changed": false, "false_condition": false, "item": 1, "skip_reason": "Conditional result was False"}
skipping: [localhost] => (item=2)  => {"ansible_loop_var": "item", "changed": false, "false_condition": false, "item": 2, "skip_reason": "Conditional result was False"}
skipping: [localhost] => (item=3)  => {"ansible_loop_var": "item", "changed": false, "false_condition": false, "item": 3, "skip_reason": "Conditional result was False"}
skipping: [localhost] => {"changed": false, "msg": "All items skipped"}

TASK [ansible.builtin.shell] ***************************************************

- ansible.builtin.shell: echo hello

changed: [localhost] => {"changed": true, "cmd": "echo hello", "delta": "0:00:00.005068", "end": "2025-04-30 23:14:05.140808", "msg": "", "rc": 0, "start": "2025-04-30 23:14:05.135740", "stderr": "", "stderr_lines": [], "stdout": "hello", "stdout_lines": ["hello"]}

TASK [ansible.builtin.ping] ****************************************************

- ansible.builtin.ping: None

ok: [localhost] => {"changed": false, "ping": "pong"}

PLAY RECAP *********************************************************************
localhost                  : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=1    rescued=0    ignored=0   

ISSUE TYPE

• Feature Pull Request

COMPONENT NAME

• community.general.print_task

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

[demonpig]

I'm not entirely sure how to work around the three tests that are failing. When I checked the outputs, they test playbooks are failing with the following. This is something that this callback plugin uses.

07:15 [ERROR]: Task failed: Module failed: Cannot detect the required Python library cryptography (>= 3.4)
07:15 Origin: /root/ansible_collections/community/general/tests/output/.tmp/integration/java_cert-di_su1xq-ÅÑŚÌβŁÈ/tests/integration/targets/java_cert/tasks/state_change.yml:10:3
07:15 
07:15  8 #
07:15  9
07:15 10 - name: Create private keys
07:15      ^ column 3
07:15 
07:15 failed: [testhost] (item=/tmp/ansible.b0rnqgr_.test/key.pem) => {
07:15     "ansible_loop_var": "item",
07:15     "changed": false,
07:15     "invocation": {
07:15         "module_args": {
07:15             "attributes": null,
07:15             "backup": false,
07:15             "cipher": "auto",
07:15             "curve": null,
07:15             "force": false,
07:15             "format": "auto_ignore",
07:15             "format_mismatch": "regenerate",
07:15             "group": null,
07:15             "mode": "u=rw,go=",
07:15             "owner": null,
07:15             "passphrase": null,
07:15     },
07:15     "item": "/tmp/ansible.b0rnqgr_.test/key.pem",
07:15     "msg": "Cannot detect the required Python library cryptography (>= 3.4)"
07:15 }

[felixfontein]

The Debian Bullseye tests failures are unrelated to this PR, please simply ignore them for now.

[felixfontein]

Thanks for your contribution! If you haven't done so, please take a look at https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-new-modules-or-plugins.

[demonpig]

I'll work on some tests later tonight.

[bcoca]

I would advise against using 'plain' yaml, i would try using the CSafeLoader first (speed of C lib), fallback to SafeLoader (slower python) and avoid other loaders. See core's use of yaml lib when in doubt.

[demonpig]

Just updated the code to do this.

[russoz]

Hi @demonpig pardon me for being a bit of a contrarian here, but how is this better than ansible-playbook -vvv? Or -vvvv? It already shows the module arguments. Personally, in my plabooks, I would not want to be changing the callback configs for a debug, just increasing the verbosity would do the trick for me. YMMV

[felixfontein]

I'd also use the C dumper here if available (and use the safe dumper instead of the default one).

Also, what do you think about @russoz comment?

[felixfontein]

Hi @demonpig pardon me for being a bit of a contrarian here, but how is this better than ansible-playbook -vvv? Or -vvvv?

It shows the arguments after being passed through the module, but you don't really see the raw task information (which also happens to be untemplated).

[demonpig]

@russoz I understand your points. I view this as an addition to -vvvv where you can get a print out of the task and the arguments passed to it. Part of the reason behind this was a need to debug playbooks within AWX / Ansible Automation Platform without having to look at the source code.

[felixfontein]

If nobody objects, I'll merge this for 10.7.0.

[patchback]

Backport to stable-10: 💚 backport PR created

✅ Backport PR branch: patchback/backports/stable-10/b861850e1a9495a1227a15b894b531409b4384e5/pr-10087

Backported as #10159

🤖 @patchback
I'm built with octomachinery and
my source is open — https://github.com/sanitizers/patchback-github-app.

[felixfontein]

@demonpig thanks for your contribution!
@Akasurde @bcoca @russoz thanks for reviewing and commenting!