Factoids and push variables via setup are now available to be templated in command args

as well as template files.  PLUS, variables are now expressed in playbooks without having
to know about the setup task, which means playbooks are simpler to read now.

lib/ansible/playbook.py

@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ import yaml
 import shlex
 import os
 
+SETUP_CACHE={ 'foo' : {} }
+
 #############################################
 
 class PlayBook(object):
@@ -150,7 +152,8 @@ class PlayBook(object):
             remote_pass=self.remote_pass,
             module_path=self.module_path,
             timeout=self.timeout,
-            remote_user=remote_user
+            remote_user=remote_user,
+            setup_cache=SETUP_CACHE
         ).run()
 
     def _run_task(self, pattern=None, task=None, host_list=None,
@@ -274,6 +277,7 @@ class PlayBook(object):
 
         # get configuration information about the pattern
         pattern  = pg['hosts']
+        vars     = pg.get('vars', {})
         tasks    = pg['tasks']
         handlers = pg['handlers']
         user     = pg.get('user', C.DEFAULT_REMOTE_USER)
@@ -283,8 +287,35 @@ class PlayBook(object):
         if self.verbose:
             print "PLAY [%s] ****************************\n" % pattern
 
-        # run all the top level tasks, these get run on every node
+        # first run the setup task on every node, which gets the variables
+        # written to the JSON file and will also bubble facts back up via
+        # magic in Runner()
+        push_var_str=''
+        for (k,v) in vars.items():
+            push_var_str += "%s=%s " % (k,v)
+        if user != 'root':
+            push_var_str = "%s metadata=~/.ansible_setup" % (push_var_str)
 
+        # push any variables down to the system
+        setup_results = ansible.runner.Runner(
+            pattern=pattern,
+            module_name='setup',
+            module_args=push_var_str,
+            host_list=self.host_list,
+            forks=self.forks,
+            module_path=self.module_path,
+            timeout=self.timeout,
+            remote_user=user,
+            setup_cache=SETUP_CACHE
+        ).run()
+
+        # now for each result, load into the setup cache so we can
+        # let runner template out future commands
+        setup_ok = setup_results.get('contacted', {})
+        for (host, result) in setup_ok.items():
+            SETUP_CACHE[host] = result
+
+        # run all the top level tasks, these get run on every node
         for task in tasks:
             self._run_task(
                 pattern=pattern,