How do I apply an Ansible with_items loop to the included tasks?

Question

The documentation for import_tasks mentions

Any loops, conditionals and most other keywords will be applied to the included tasks, not to this statem

Answer 1

It is not possible. include/import statements operate with task files as a whole.

So with loops you'll have:

Task 1 with Item 1
Task 2 with Item 1
Task 3 with Item 1
Task 1 with Item 2
Task 2 with Item 2
Task 3 with Item 2
Task 1 with Item 3
Task 2 with Item 3
Task 3 with Item 3

Answer 2

You can add a with_items loop taking a list to every task in the imported file, and call import_tasks with a variable which you pass to the inner with_items loop. This moves the handling of the loops to the imported file, and requires duplication of the loop on all tasks.

---

Given your example, this would change the files to:

playbook.yml

---

- hosts: 192.168.33.100
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
  - import_tasks: msg.yml
    vars:
      messages:
        - 1
        - 2

msg.yml

---

- name: Message 1
  debug:
    msg: "Message 1: {{ item }}"
  with_items:
    - "{{ messages }}"

- name: Message 2
  debug:
    msg: "Message 2: {{ item }}"
  with_items:
    - "{{ messages }}"