Ansible - remove unmanaged files from a directory

README.md

from this question on Stack Overflow

Set up a managed_files variable as an array

- hosts: whatever
  vars:
    managed_files:
     - file1
     - file2
     - file3

In a playbook, use it like this:

- shell: ls -1 /some/dir
  register: contents

- file: path=/some/dir/{{ item }} state=absent
  with_items: contents.stdout_lines
  when: item not in managed_files

See my answer on StackOverflow for an improved version of this using find instead of shell.

Thanks