[ansible] Ansible date variable

I'm trying to learn how to use Ansible facts as variables, and I don't get it. When I run...

$ ansible localhost -m setup

...it lists all of the facts of my system. I selected one at random to try and use it, ansible_facts.ansible_date_time.date, but I can't figure out HOW to use it. When I run...

$ ansible localhost -m setup -a "filter=ansible_date_time"
localhost | success >> {
    "ansible_facts": {
        "ansible_date_time": {
            "date": "2015-07-09",
            "day": "09",
            "epoch": "1436460014",
            "hour": "10",
            "iso8601": "2015-07-09T16:40:14Z",
            "iso8601_micro": "2015-07-09T16:40:14.795637Z",
            "minute": "40",
            "month": "07",
            "second": "14",
            "time": "10:40:14",
            "tz": "MDT",
            "tz_offset": "-0600",
            "weekday": "Thursday",
            "year": "2015"
        }
    },
    "changed": false
}

So, it's CLEARLY there. But when I run...

$ ansible localhost -a "echo {{ ansible_facts.ansible_date_time.date }}"
localhost | FAILED => One or more undefined variables: 'ansible_facts' is undefined

$ ansible localhost -a "echo {{ ansible_date_time.date }}"
localhost | FAILED => One or more undefined variables: 'ansible_date_time' is undefined

$ ansible localhost -a "echo {{ date }}"
localhost | FAILED => One or more undefined variables: 'date' is undefined

What am I not getting here? How do I use Facts as variables?

I tried the lookup('pipe,'date') method and got trouble when I push the playbook to the tower. The tower is somehow using UTC timezone. All play executed as early as the + hours of my TZ will give me one day later of the actual date.

For example: if my TZ is Asia/Manila I supposed to have UTC+8. If I execute the playbook earlier than 8:00am in Ansible Tower, the date will follow to what was in UTC+0. It took me a while until I found this case. It let me use the date option '-d \"+8 hours\" +%F'. Now it gives me the exact date that I wanted.

Below is the variable I set in my playbook:

  vars:
    cur_target_wd: "{{ lookup('pipe','date -d \"+8 hours\" +%Y/%m-%b/%d-%a') }}"

That will give me the value of "cur_target_wd = 2020/05-May/28-Thu" even I run it earlier than 8:00am now.

The lookup module of ansible works fine for me. The yml is:

- hosts: test
  vars:
    time: "{{ lookup('pipe', 'date -d \"1 day ago\" +\"%Y%m%d\"') }}"

You can replace any command with date to get result of the command.

The filter option filters only the first level subkey below ansible_facts

Note that the ansible command doesn't collect facts, but the ansible-playbook command does. When running ansible -m setup, the setup module happens to run the fact collection so you get the facts, but running ansible -m command does not. Therefore the facts aren't available. This is why the other answers include playbook YAML files and indicate the lookup works.