As Arbab Nazar mentioned, you can use {{ variable | mandatory }} (see Forcing variables to be defined) inside Ansible task.
But I think it looks nicer to add this as first task, it checks is app_name, app_user and app_user_group exist:
- name: 'Check mandatory variables are defined'
assert:
that:
- app_name is defined
- app_user is defined
- app_user_group is defined