Schedule deletion of unused template

Question

In Ansible Tower, is there a possibility to create a scheduled task that checks if a template has not been executed for one year and if so, deletes it?

Answer 1

The short answers is: yes, of course. The long answer is: someone has to create such task. To do so, one may getting familiar with the Ansible Tower REST API, in detail Job Templates - List Jobs for a Job Template.

In example, a call for Jobs of a Job Template which was never executed

curl --silent --user ${ACCOUNT}:${PASSWORD} https://${TOWER_URL}/api/v2/job_templates/${ID}/jobs/ --write-out "\n%{http_code}\n"| jq .

would result into an output of

{
  "count": 0,
  "next": null,
  "previous": null,
  "results": []
}
200

A call for Jobs of a Job Template which is executed daily would result into an output of

{
  "count": 70,
  "next": "/api/v2/job_templates/<id>/jobs/?page=2",
  "previous": null,
  "results": [
    {
      "id": <id>,
    <snip>
      "created": "2022-06-10T05:57:18.976798Z",
      "modified": "2022-06-10T05:57:19.666354Z",
      "name": "<name>",
      "description": "<description>",
      "unified_job_template": <id>,
      "launch_type": "manual",
      "status": "successful",
      "failed": false,
      "started": "2022-06-10T05:57:19.870208Z",
      "finished": "2022-06-10T05:57:33.752072Z",
      "canceled_on": null,
      "elapsed": 13.882,
      "job_explanation": "",
      "execution_node": "<executionNode>",
      "controller_node": "",
      "job_type": "run",
      "inventory": <id>,
      "project": <id>,
      "playbook": "<path>",
      "scm_branch": "",
      "forks": 0,
      "limit": "<hostgroup>",
      "verbosity": 0,
      "extra_vars": "{\"if_there_any\": \"false\"}",
      "job_tags": "check",
      "force_handlers": false,
      "skip_tags": "",
      "start_at_task": "",
      "timeout": 0,
      "use_fact_cache": false,
      "organization": <id>,
      "job_template": <id>,
      "passwords_needed_to_start": [
        "ssh_password"
      ],
      "allow_simultaneous": false,
      "artifacts": {},
      "scm_revision": "<rev>",
      "instance_group": 1,
      "diff_mode": false,
      "job_slice_number": 0,
      "job_slice_count": 1,
      "webhook_service": "",
      "webhook_credential": null,
      "webhook_guid": ""
    }
  ]
}
200

Since the goal is to execute it via Ansible Engine, as well schedule via Ansible Tower, a sample rest.yml playbook

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

  vars:

    TOWER_API_URL: "<tower_url>/api/v2"
    FILTER: ".version"
    ID: "<id>"

  tasks:

  - name: Example REST API call
    shell:
      cmd: curl --silent -u '{{ ansible_user }}:{{ ansible_password }}' --location {{ TOWER_API_URL }}/ping | jq {{ FILTER }}
      warn: false
    register: result
    failed_when: result.rc != 0
    changed_when: false
    check_mode: false

  - name: Show result
    debug:
      msg: "{{ result.stdout }}"

  - name: List Jobs for a Job Template
    uri:
      url: "https://{{ TOWER_API_URL }}/job_templates/{{ ID }}/jobs/"
      user: "{{ ansible_user }}"
      password: "{{ ansible_password }}"
      force_basic_auth: true
      method: GET
      validate_certs: yes
      return_content: yes
      status_code: 200
      body_format: json
    check_mode: false
    register: result

  - name: Show result
    debug:
      msg: "{{ result.json.results }}" # list of jobs

which can be called from CLI via

sshpass -p ${PASSWORD} ansible-playbook --user ${ACCOUNT} --ask-pass rest.yml

Please take note that the "count": 70 is greater than the result set result.json.results | length of 25 and there is a next page mentioned "next": "...?page=2". The result.json.results | last therefore does not contain the most recent execution. This is because of Pagination.

Depending on the setup and actual configuration of Ansible Tower one may need to adjust the page_size. In example to get the most recent result

...
      url: "https://{{ TOWER_API_URL }}/job_templates/{{ ID }}/jobs/?page_size=100"
...
      msg: "{{ result.json.results | last }}"