The meta module with clear_host_errors can be used to clear fatal and fail errors.

The ansible-doc meta command can be used to show the Ansible documention on the meta module.

Let's say /tmp/foo.txt does not exist on a managed node (e.g. target systems), and you attempt to append "Hello World" to /tmp/foo.txt using the lineinfile module.

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: append 'Hello World' to /tmp/foo.txt
      lineinfile:
        path: /tmp/foo.txt
        line: Hello World

When the target file does not exist, invoking this playbook will return a fatal error, like this.

TASK [append 'Hello World' to /tmp/foo.txt] 
fatal: [server1.example.com]: FAILED! => {"ansible_facts": {"discovered_interpreter_python": "/usr/bin/python"}, "changed": false, "msg": "Destination /tmp/foo.txt does not exist !", "rc": 257}

There are a few ways to approach this.

• Use the --check command line flag to run the playbook in a dry run mode
• Use the check_mode parameter to determine if the lineinfile module will return an error
• Use the ignore_errors parameter can be used.
• Use the meta: clear_host_errors parameter (that is what is described in this article)
• Use the stat module to determine if /tmp/foo.txt exists and the when parameter to skip the lineinfile module if /tmp/foo.txt does not exist.
• Use the stat module to determine if /tmp/foo.txt exists and then use the file module and the when parameter to create /tmp/foo.txt if the file does not exist

The meta module with clear_host_errors will change this behavior, so that server1.example.com is processed in the subsequent tasks.

---
- hosts: all
  tasks:
    - name: append 'Hello World' to /tmp/foo.txt
      lineinfile:
        path: /tmp/foo.txt
        line: Hello World

    - meta: clear_host_errors