Use ansible templating but rysnc to move files - templates

Question

I have quite a few files (Nginx configs) that are candidates for templating but I want to move them using rysnc/synchronize modules.
Is there a way to achieve this?
Right now I do this
- name: Copy configuration
synchronize:
src: "{{ nginx_path }}/"
dest: /etc/nginx/
rsync_path: "sudo rsync"
rsync_opts:
- "--no-motd"
- "--exclude=.git"
- "--exclude=modules"
- "--delete"
notify:
- Reload Nginx
The templating engine is combined with the move/copy action and therefore I can’t use it to apply the templates and keep it in the source itself and then use rsync to move it.
Edit:
Another way to rephrase this would be:
Is there a way to apply templates, and keep the applied output it in the source machine itself?

Answer 1

Not in a single task no. However, the following playbook stub achieves what, I believe, you desire:
---
- hosts: localhost
gather_facts: no
tasks:
- name: "1. Create temporary directory"
tempfile:
state: directory
register: temp_file_path
- name: "2. Template source files to temp directory"
template:
src: "{{ item }}"
dest: "{{ temp_file_path.path }}/{{ item | basename | regex_replace('.j2$', '') }}"
loop: "{{ query('fileglob', 'source/*.j2') }}"
delegate_to: localhost
- name: "3. Sync these to the destination"
synchronize:
src: "{{ temp_file_path.path }}/"
dest: "dest"
delete: yes
- name: "4. Delete the temporary directory (optional)"
file:
path: "{{ temp_file_path.path }}"
state: absent
Explanation:
For testing, this playbook was written to target localhost and connect using the local method, I developed it to simply look for all .j2 files in ./source/*.j2 and rsync the created files to ./dest/ on my workstation. I ran it using ansible-playbook -i localhost, playbook_name.yml --connection=local
Task 1. We are going to template out the source files to the local host first (using the delegate_to: localhost option on the template task). You can either create a specific directory to do this, or use Ansible's tempfile module to create one somewhere (typically) under /tmp.
Task 2. Use the template module to convert your jinja templates (with arbitrary filenames ending in .j2) found in "./source/" to output files written to the directory created in task 1 above.
Task 3. Use the synchronize module to rsync these to the destination server (for testing I used ./dest on the same box).
Task 4. Delete the temporary directory created in task 1 above.

Answer 2

There is with_filetree plugin that not only allows you to copy a bunch of templates, it also allows you to recreate the folder structure of your source on your destination:
- name: Template complete tree
template:
src: '{{ item.src }}'
dest: /web/{{ item.path }}
force: yes
with_community.general.filetree: web/
when: item.state == 'file'
For more details take a look at the original pull request: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/14332
On the latest versions, it seems to be under community general
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/community/general/filetree_lookup.html