When should you use blocks with rescue in Ansible?

A block groups related tasks together, and pairing it with rescue gives Ansible try/catch-like error handling: if any task inside the block fails, execution jumps to the rescue section instead of immediately failing the whole host.

- block:
    - name: Deploy new application version
      ansible.builtin.command: /opt/deploy.sh
  rescue:
    - name: Roll back to previous version
      ansible.builtin.command: /opt/rollback.sh
  always:
    - name: Notify deployment status
      ansible.builtin.debug:
        msg: "Deployment attempt finished"

Use this pattern whenever a sequence of steps needs a defined fallback if something partway through fails, such as rolling back a deployment, cleaning up a partially-created resource, or sending an alert before giving up on that host. The optional always section runs regardless of whether the block succeeded or the rescue was triggered, making it a natural place for cleanup or notification logic that must happen either way.

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