Is it possible for ansible inventory to use variables according to group?

Question

I'm new to ansible. I'm sorry if my question is basic.

Let's say I have a web server in a group called web in my inventory file. The same server is also in the test group. Something like this:

web:
  hosts:
    vm01:
      ansible_host: foo.example.com
      ansible_user: user1
test:
  hosts:
    vm01:
      ansible_user: user2

If I run:

ansible-inventory -i inventory.yaml --list

I get the following output:

{
    "_meta": {
        "hostvars": {
            "vm01": {
                "ansible_host": "foo.example.com",
                "ansible_user": "user2"
            }
        }
    },
    "all": {
        "children": [
            "test",
            "ungrouped",
            "web"
        ]
    },
    "test": {
        "hosts": [
            "vm01"
        ]
    },
    "web": {
        "hosts": [
            "vm01"
        ]
    }
}

First of all, why vm01 is getting ansible_user variable from the test group?? Isn't it supposed to get it from the web??? According to documentation, variables at the same level will have values according to the parent's ASCII order.

Second, is it possible to run ansible somehow, to use ansible_user variable from test group instead??

Answer 1

Why vm01 is getting ansible_user variable from the test group??

According Understanding variable precedence

In general, Ansible gives precedence to variables that were defined more recently, more actively, and with more explicit scope.

In other words, the last definition wins always.

Isn't it supposed to get it from the web???

Therefore, no.

Is it possible to run ansible somehow, to use ansible_user variable from test group instead??

Yes, by limiting the execution to that group (test) in example via targeting hosts and groups.