Yes, you can run commands on the Ansible host. You can specify that all tasks in a play run on the Ansible host, or you can mark individual tasks to run on the Ansible host.
If you want to run an entire play on the Ansible host, then specify hosts: 127.0.0.1 and connection:local in the play, for example:
- name: a play that runs entirely on the ansible host
hosts: 127.0.0.1
connection: local
tasks:
- name: check out a git repository
git: repo=git://foosball.example.org/path/to/repo.git dest=/local/path
See Local Playbooks in the Ansible documentation for more details.
If you just want to run a single task on your Ansible host, you can use local_action to specify that a task should be run locally. For example:
- name: an example playbook
hosts: webservers
tasks:
- ...
- name: check out a git repository
local_action: git repo=git://foosball.example.org/path/to/repo.git dest=/local/path
See “Controlling where tasks run: delegation and local actions” in the Ansible documentation for more details.
You can avoid having to type connection: local in your play by adding this to your inventory:
localhost ansible_connection=local
(Here you’d use “localhost” instead of “127.0.0.1” to refer to the play).
In newer versions of Ansible, you no longer need to add the above line to your inventory, Ansible assumes it’s already there.