How do I return just the full path of a file found with the find module in Ansible?
Answers to some parts of your question are:


"I want to find a softlink (to another file) in the $PATH environment variable on Linux managed nodes"

Use "shell" module instead of lookup. 


  Lookup occur on the local computer, not on the remote computer.

"I want to extract the path of the file name for the file that is found. How do I do this?"

Use "files_found.files" to see the complete path. Checkout the return values section in find module documentation.
As far as i understood, you want to do something like this


Try out the following:

- name: finding files matching "goodfile" pattern
  find:
     paths: "{{ some_path }}"
     patterns: "goodfile"
     file_type: link
  register: files_found

- name : get the complete path
  set_fact:
    files_found_path: "{{ files_found.files }}"

 - debug:
     var: files_found_path