Decoding Ansible Syntax Errors: A Troubleshooting Guide

test report.txt

---
- name: win_copy module demo
  hosts: all
  become: false
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    source: "report.txt"
    destination: "Desktop/report.txt"
  tasks:
    - name: copy report.txt
      ansible.windows.win_copy:
        src: "{{ source }}"
        dest: "{{ destination }}

$ ansible-playbook -i win/inventory troubleshooting/syntax_error.yml
ERROR! We were unable to read either as JSON nor YAML, these are the errors we got from each:
JSON: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

Syntax Error while loading YAML.
found unexpected end of stream

The error appears to be in 'ansible-pilot/troubleshooting/syntax_error.yml': line 14, column 1, but may
be elsewhere in the file depending on the exact syntax problem.

The offending line appears to be:

src: "{{ source }}"
dest: "{{ destination }}
^ here
We could be wrong, but this one looks like it might be an issue with
missing quotes. Always quote template expression brackets when they
start a value. For instance:

with_items:
- {{ foo }}

Should be written as:

with_items:
- "{{ foo }}"

---
- name: win_copy module demo
  hosts: all
  become: false
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    source: "report.txt"
    destination: "Desktop/report.txt"
  tasks:
    - name: copy report.txt
      ansible.windows.win_copy:
        src: "{{ source }}"
        dest: "{{ destination }}"

$ ansible-playbook -i win/inventory troubleshooting/syntax_fix.yml

PLAY [win_copy module demo] ***********************************************************************

TASK [copy report.txt] ****************************************************************************
ok: [WindowsServer]

PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
WindowsServer              : ok=1    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0