We can further separate out the host variables in the same format as the group variables:

$ mkdir host_vars

In our case, we execute the commands on the localhost, therefore the file under host_vars should be named accordingly, such as host_vars/localhost. Note that we kept the variables declared in group_vars.

    ---
    "nexus_devices":
      "nx-osv-1":
        "hostname": "nx-osv-1"
        "username": "{{ username }}"
        "password": "{{ password }}"
        <skip>
        "netflow_enable": True
      "nx-osv-2":
        "hostname": "nx-osv-2"
        "username": "{{ username }}"
        "password": "{{ password }}"
        <skip>

After we separate out the variables, the playbook now becomes very lightweight and only consists of the logic of our operation:

    $ cat chapter5_9.yml
    ---
    - name: Ansible Group and Host Variables
      hosts: localhost

      tasks:
        - name: create router configuration files
          template:
            src=./nxos.j2
            dest=./{{ item.key }}.conf
          with_dict: "{{ nexus_devices }}"

The group_vars and host_vars directories not only decrease our operations overhead. They can help in securing the files, which we will see next.