What is the best strategy for running an ansible playbook within an ansible playbook?
If I've understood your problem correctly:


the ansible shell command in the middle could be converted to a simple playbook using the command task - let's call this middle.yml
your existing playbook could then directly import this middle.yml play (or even a more complex playbook).  In Ansible 2.4+, you would use import_playbook, specifically import_playbook: middle.yml, or in earlier versions, just include: middle.yml.


This processes the whole middle.yml playbook as if it was part of the main playbook - you have all the features of Ansible plays (hosts etc) and the output appears as part of main playbook.

This answer may need updating depending on your response to my comment above.