What is the difference between 'when' and 'tags' in Ansible?

In Ansible, when and tags serve different purposes:

• when — a condition for executing a task. The task will only run if the condition is true. It allows dynamic control based on variables, facts, etc.

• tags — labels for grouping tasks. They enable running only tasks with certain tags or skipping others when executing a playbook.

Example:

- name: Install package
  apt:
    name: nginx
    state: present
  when: ansible_os_family == "Debian"
  tags:
    - webserver

Here, the task will only run on Debian systems (when), and when running the playbook, you can specify --tags webserver to execute only tasks with this tag.

In summary:

• when controls task execution in a specific run.
• tags control task selection for execution from the entire playbook.