Get the SCM branch/tag name as playbook variable

Question

I have a playbook which needs its own version at runtime to deploy various configuration. Today I use a script which takes a version parameter then git clone/checkout to this version and finally call ansible-playbook with -e project_version=$version.

This is fine and all but now I would like to use AWX instead.

There is the "SCM Branch" parameter when launching a job, but it doesn't seem to be exposed during the playbook run.

Is there a proper way to do this?

Here are the (ugly) workarounds I could think of:

• Manually add the project_version extra variable when launching the AWX job (so the version has to be entered twice each time)
• Change the playbook to retrieve the git tag/branch/commit label at runtime (which is not so simple because AWX does not do a proper git clone)
• Bypass AWX by making it checkout an intermediary project (closer to my existing script)

Answer 1

If you want to know the commit number you can use the variable awx_project_revision in AWX and tower_project_revision in Ansible Tower. Those variables are added to the job environment automatically when you run your template.