Running tasks concurrently in ansible (not a loop) - asynchronous

Question

I have three tasks in an ansible playbook that are unique enough that I can't wrap them in a loop. For simplicity, let's assume they are creating three different VM instances in a cloud provider and that each task has a specific configuration
- name: Create VM set A
cloud_provider.vm:
{stuff here}
- name: Create VM set B
cloud_provider.vm:
{stuff here}
- name: Create VM set C
cloud_provider.vm:
{stuff here}
Now this works, and creates the three sets of VM, but I'd like to run them in parallel so I am not waiting as long (the VMs run through several startup processes and it takes a while)
I've looked at
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/async_status_module.html#async-status-module
and
https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/playbooks_async.html
but they seem to use loops which I can't do here because the different sets are pretty different.
How/Can I async these tasks?

Answer 1

Q: "They seem to use loops which I can't do here because the different sets are pretty different. How/Can I async these tasks?"
A: You can use a loop to wait for the tasks. For example
- hosts: localhost
tasks:
- shell: 'sleep 5 && echo VMA created'
async: 1000
poll: 0
register: cmd_result_A
- shell: 'sleep 9 && echo VMB created'
async: 1000
poll: 0
register: cmd_result_B
- shell: 'sleep 7 && echo VMC created'
async: 1000
poll: 0
register: cmd_result_C
- async_status:
jid: '{{ item }}'
register: result
until: result.finished
retries: 20
delay: 1
loop:
- "{{ cmd_result_A.ansible_job_id }}"
- "{{ cmd_result_B.ansible_job_id }}"
- "{{ cmd_result_C.ansible_job_id }}"
- debug:
msg: >-
{{ item.start.split(' ')|last }} -
{{ item.end.split(' ')|last }} |
stdout: {{ item.stdout }}
loop: "{{ result.results }}"
gives (abridged)
msg: '13:31:13.477444 - 13:31:18.483527 | stdout: VMA created'
msg: '13:31:13.722892 - 13:31:22.728505 | stdout: VMB created'
msg: '13:31:14.001067 - 13:31:21.008131 | stdout: VMC created'
To simplify the code you might want to try and loop the tasks too. For example
- shell: "{{ item }}"
async: 1000
poll: 0
register: cmd_result
loop:
- 'sleep 5 && echo VMA created'
- 'sleep 9 && echo VMB created'
- 'sleep 7 && echo VMC created'
- async_status:
jid: '{{ item }}'
register: result
until: result.finished
retries: 20
delay: 1
loop: "{{ cmd_result.results|map(attribute='ansible_job_id')|list }}"