Hide skipped ansible tasks without using display_skipped_hosts - ansible

Question

I have an ansible role with this:
---
- import_tasks: foo.yml
when: ShouldRunFoo
If ShouldRunFoo == false then the file is skipped, but the console shows its tasks (as "skipped").
I could use the display_skipped_hosts = no config option, but that hides everything skipped in a playbook, not just foo.yml.
Is there a way to do this? I want to see skipped tasks, just not those from foo.yml (if it is skipped).

Answer 1

I struggled with that sometime ago and using different sources I found one approach that is not pretty clean but do the trick. (I am assuming you know about the display_skipped_hosts=no and you still want to print some of the skipped ones)
You can do a loop using Jinja expression to delete the messages from the debug output (The titles of the task will always be shown):
---
- hosts: all
tasks:
- name: task to skip and display
debug:
msg: "HELLO WORLD"
when: "'SOMETHING' in group_names"
- name: task to skip and not display
debug:
msg: "HELLO WORLD"
loop: "{% if 'SOMETHING' in group_names%} {{debug_list}}{% else %}[]{% endif %}"

Answer 2

If in a specific use case, you can use either import_tasks or include_tasks, then do this:
$ cat playbook.yml:
---
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- name: subtasks will be printed
import_tasks: tasks.yml
when: false
- name: subtasks will not be printed
include_tasks: tasks.yml # <----------
when: false
$ cat tasks.yml:
---
- debug: msg=1
- debug: msg=2
- debug: msg=3
$ ansible-playbook playbook.yml:
PLAY [localhost] **************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ********************************************************
ok: [localhost]
TASK [debug] ******************************************************************
skipping: [localhost]
TASK [debug] ******************************************************************
skipping: [localhost]
TASK [debug] ******************************************************************
skipping: [localhost]
TASK [subtasks will not be printed] *******************************************
skipping: [localhost]
PLAY RECAP ********************************************************************
localhost : ok=1 changed=0 unreachable=0 failed=0 skipped=4 rescued=0 ignored=0
I imagine this will not always be applicable, so it's not a perfect solution.