Rerunning same Ansible task a few times - ansible

Question

I am trying to implement a task that runs in a loop, for example, ten times.
Currently, the task runs only once.
I am trying something like the following:
my_role/tasks/main.yaml
---
- set_fact:
counter: 0
- name: "Iteration"
import_task: my_task.yaml
until: counter <= 10
...
my_role/tasks/my_task.yaml
---
- name: "task 1"
...
- name: "task 2"
...
- set_fact:
counter=={{ counter | int + 1 }}
...
I expected "task 1" and "task 2" to run ten times.
I would be happy to get some ideas on how to implement such loop.

Answer 1

You should use include_tasks module and loop over it.
my_role/tasks/main.yaml
---
- name: "Iteration"
ansible.builtin.include_tasks:
file: my_task.yaml
with_sequence: start=1 end=10
...
my_role/tasks/my_task.yaml
---
- name: "task 1"
...
- name: "task 2"
...
...

Answer 2

Ansible is an automation tool that is commonly used to configure and manage servers, networks, and other IT infrastructure. One of the key features of Ansible is its idempotence, which means that running the same task multiple times on the same system should produce the same end result, regardless of how many times the task is run.
Here is a plan on how to rerun the same Ansible task multiple times:
Create or open an existing Ansible playbook. A playbook is a YAML file that contains one or more plays, which are a list of tasks that are executed on a specific set of hosts.
Define the task that you want to rerun in the playbook using the Ansible modules. These modules are pre-built scripts that can perform specific actions on the remote systems, such as installing software, creating users, and configuring services.
Run the playbook using the ansible-playbook command. You can run the playbook on one or more specific hosts by specifying the -l option, or on all the hosts defined in your inventory file by using the -i option.
Ansible uses the idempotence feature to make sure that the same task is executed only once on the same host. If the task has already been executed and the state of the host hasn't changed, Ansible will not execute the task again.
If you want to force the task to rerun even if the state of the host hasn't changed, you can use the --force-handlers or --force-rerun options when running the ansible-playbook command.
To check the results of the tasks, you can check the log files generated by Ansible or the output of the ansible-playbook command.
Here is an example of how to run the same task multiple times using ansible-playbook command:
ansible-playbook playbook.yml --extra-vars "var1=value1 var2=value2"
You can run this command as many times as you want and Ansible will make sure that the task is executed only once, unless you use the --force-handlers or --force-rerun options.
Please note that if the task is modifying a state of the host, rerunning the task will have an effect and will change the state of the host.

Answer 3

How to implement task(s) that runs in a loop?
To do so, you may have a look into Loops and a minimal example like
---
- hosts: localhost
become: false
gather_facts: false
tasks:
- name: Example loop
debug:
msg: "{{ item }}"
loop: "{{ range(1, 11) | list }}"
register: result
resulting into an output of
TASK [Example loop] **********
ok: [localhost] => (item=1) =>
msg: 1
ok: [localhost] => (item=2) =>
msg: 2
ok: [localhost] => (item=3) =>
msg: 3
ok: [localhost] => (item=4) =>
msg: 4
ok: [localhost] => (item=5) =>
msg: 5
ok: [localhost] => (item=6) =>
msg: 6
ok: [localhost] => (item=7) =>
msg: 7
ok: [localhost] => (item=8) =>
msg: 8
ok: [localhost] => (item=9) =>
msg: 9
ok: [localhost] => (item=10) =>
msg: 10
whereby it is possible to replace the current single task debug against an import_task for a task file.
Further Documentation
Extended loop variables
What's the difference between include_tasks and import_tasks?