How to use loop items or variable as the parameter key for a module in Ansible

Question

I am writing a role to export configurations from Ansible AWX deployment. I want to loop over the items to export as follows. How is something like this possible?

- name: Export Config
  awx.awx.export:
    "{{ item }}": []
    controller_host: ...
    controller_username: ...
    controller_password: ...
  loop:
  - projects
  - inventory
  - applications
  - credentials 

Answer 1

Whereby it is possible to have dynamic or variable values, it is not possible to have tasks with dynamic parameter keys.

Even using Templating (Jinja2) with import_tasks module – Import a task list, please take note about What's the difference between include_tasks and import_tasks?, such approach will run into errors.

A minimal example

dyn_task.yml

- shell:
    "{{ parameter }}": "{{ value }}"

main.yml

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false

  vars:

    module: shell
    parameter: cmd
    value: exit 1

  tasks:

  - include_tasks: dyn_task.yml

will result into an error and output of

TASK [shell] *******************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "msg": "Unsupported parameters for (ansible.legacy.command) module: {{ parameter }}. Supported parameters include: warn, executable, chdir, strip_empty_ends, _raw_params, removes, argv, creates, _uses_shell, stdin_add_newline, stdin."}

as the parameter became not resolved.

---

It might be possible via

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false

  vars:

    module: shell
    parameter: cmd
    value: exit 1

  tasks:

  - copy:
      dest: dyn_task.yml
      content: |
        - {{ module }}:
            {{ parameter}}: {{ value }}

  - include_tasks: dyn_task.yml

resulting into an correct and expected output of

TASK [shell] *******************************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [localhost]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "cmd": "exit 1", "delta": "0:00:00.010517", "end": "2023-12-14 10:00:00.715979", "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 1, "start": "2023-12-14 10:00:00.705462", "stderr": "", "stderr_lines": [], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}

but I would consider this as very bad practice here in this case and recommend to use such not at all. See What are the uses of Self Modifying Code (SMC)?

---

Summary

How to use loop items or variable as the parameter key for a module in Ansible?

To summarize the above description, either you can't or it is recommended not to do such.

And for completeness

---
- hosts: localhost
  become: false
  gather_facts: false

  vars:

    components:
      - projects
      - inventory
      - applicatitons
      - credentials

  tasks:

  - copy:
      dest: export_awx_{{ item }}.yml
      content: |
        - name: Export AWX Config
          awx.awx.export:
            {{ item }}: []
            controller_host: ...
            controller_username: ...
            controller_password: ...
    loop: "{{ components }}"

  - include_tasks: export_awx_{{ item }}.yml
    loop: "{{ components }}"

whereby the dest path needs to be the path under in example /var/lib/awx/projects/.