"When" Condition on Ansible Playbook Doesn't Work as Expected Using Operators

ansible - when condition not working with logical AND operator

Your second condition appears to be a string. I mean the whole condition. A string always is true.

"'Applying auth.0001_initial... OK' in django_migration_result.stdout"

In your last code block, the whole condition is in quotes. That would be a string on the yaml level and the reason why it then works.

This:

key: value

is the same as:

key: "value"

Writing your condition like this should do the trick:

when: django_migration_result|changed and ('Applying auth.0001_initial... OK' in django_migration_result.stdout)

Or even better:

when:
  - django_migration_result | changed
  - 'Applying auth.0001_initial... OK' in django_migration_result.stdout

import_playbook pass variable but it doesn't work in when condition

dynamic_hosts is not a variable, it's an element in the list of groups. You can debug that if you do a debug var=groups

You have to access it via groups.dynamic_hosts.

- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - debug:
       var: groups.dynamic_hosts
    - name: PROMPT
      block:      
        - name: ask host
          pause:
            prompt: "Please enter target IP"        
          register: target_host          
        - name: add to dynamic_hosts
          add_host:
            name: "{{ target_host.user_input }}"
            groups: dynamic_hosts2        
      when: groups.dynamic_hosts is not defined 

Ansible when variable == true not behaving as expected

You need to convert the variable to a boolean:

force_install|bool == true

I don't claim I understand the logic behind it. In python any non-empty string should be truthy. But when directly used in a condition it evaluates to false.

The bool filter then again interprets the strings 'yes', 'on', '1', 'true' (case-insensitive) and 1 as true (see source). Any other string is false.

You might want to also set a default value in case force_install is not defined, since it would result in an undefined variable error:

force_install|default(false)|bool == true

Ansible seems to be ignoring variable in when conditional when it is overridden with -e from the command line

The problem is caused by the fact that the type of the extra variables passed to Ansible from the command line is always string. For example, the playbook below

shell> cat pb.yml
- hosts: localhost
  vars:
    doomed: false
  tasks:
    - debug:
        var: doomed|type_debug
    - debug:
        msg: We are doomed
      when: doomed

works as expected. The type of the variable doomed is Boolean. Then, simply use the variable in the condition. No comparison is needed. The debug task will be skipped

shell> ansible-playbook pb.yml

PLAY [localhost] ******************************************************************************

TASK [debug] **********************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => 
  doomed|type_debug: bool

TASK [debug] **********************************************************************************
skipping: [localhost]

The thing will change when you pass the variable from the command line. Now, the type of the variable doomed is a string. A non-empty string will evaluate to True in the condition and the debug task will be executed

shell> ansible-playbook pb.yml -e doomed=false

PLAY [localhost] ******************************************************************************

TASK [debug] **********************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => 
  doomed|type_debug: str

TASK [debug] **********************************************************************************
ok: [localhost] => 
  msg: We are doomed

There is a simple universal solution. Always cast such variables to bool. In addition to this, to simplify the code, default to false or true, depending on the use-case, instead of an explicit declaration. This way you write the code fast and the condition will always do what you want

shell> cat pb.yml
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
    - debug:
        msg: We are doomed
      when: doomed|d(false)|bool

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