Ansible: variable interpolation in task name

Question

I cannot get this seemingly simple example to work in Ansible 1.8.3. The variable interpolation does not kick in the task name. All examples I have seen seem to suggest this sho

Answer 1

Explanation

Whether the variable gets interpolated depends on where it has been declared.

Imagine You have two hosts: A and B.

• If variable foo has only per-host values, when Ansible runs the play, it cannot decide which value to use.
• On the other hand, if it has a global value (global in a sense of host invariance), there is no confusion which value to use.

Source: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/3103#issuecomment-18835432

Hands on playbook

• ansible_user is an inventory variable
• greeting is an invariant variable

- name: Test variable substitution in names
  hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  vars:
    greeting: Hello
  tasks:
    - name: Sorry {{ ansible_user }}
      debug:
        msg: this won't work
    - name: You say '{{ greeting }}'
      debug:
        var: ansible_user