Get the highest value of a json key with Ansible

Question

I want to get the highest value of a child key with Ansible and store it in a variable. I'm able to do it with a bash command, which I could easily use with Ansible but I'm sure there is a more Ansible way to do it. Here is what I currently have:

- name: get latest version
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  tasks:
    - name: get latest version
      ansible.builtin.command: curl --silent https://download.checkmk.com/stable_downloads.json | jq -r '.checkmk[].version' | sort -r | head -1

How could I improve this and store it in a variable? Thank you!

Answer 1

You can use the uri module to fetch the remote URL, instead of calling out to curl; you can use the json_query filter to parse the data; and you can use the sort and last filters to get the value you want. Finally, you use the set_fact module to store the value in a variable:

- name: get latest version
  hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: get latest version
      uri:
        url: https://download.checkmk.com/stable_downloads.json
      register: version

    - set_fact:
        chkmk_version: "{{ version.json|json_query('checkmk.*.version')|sort|last }}"

    - debug:
        msg: "Latest checkmk version: {{ chkmk_version }}"