Ansible: Could not define "all" variables with a YAML inventory file

[nervo]

ISSUE TYPE

• Feature Idea

COMPONENT NAME

YAML inventory

ANSIBLE VERSION

ansible 2.2.0.0
  config file =
  configured module search path = Default w/o overrides

CONFIGURATION

N/A

OS / ENVIRONMENT

N/A

SUMMARY

We should be able to define all vars in yaml inventory, just like we can do it in ini ones, such as:

[all:vars]
foo=bar

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

Given the following hosts.yml

all:
  vars:
    foo: bar

test:
  hosts:
    localhost:

and the following command:

ansible -i hosts.yml all -m debug -a var=foo

EXPECTED RESULTS

localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "foo": "bar"
}

ACTUAL RESULTS

localhost | SUCCESS => {
    "foo": "VARIABLE IS NOT DEFINED!"
}

[bcoca]

fixed via #22418
you should be able to do this now:

all:
  hosts:
     host1
  vars:
     myvar: myval
  children:
     group1: ....