Ansible error ERROR Variables must be specified as a dictionary or a list of dictionaries

Question

I am trying to create an s3 bucket using ansible. The following is my playbook:

---
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: no
  connection: local
  vars_files:
   - aws-creds.yml
  vars:
    bucketname: shenllbucket01
  tasks:
    - name: To Create An S3 Bucket
      s3:
       aws_access_key: "{{ access_key }}"
       aws_secret_key: "{{ secret_key }}"
       bucket: "{{ bucketname }}"
       mode: create

Comments

Can you show me your variable file? The issue seems there as everything looks fine on your playbook.

---

cat aws-creds.yml
access_key:*********************
secret_key:*********

---

The syntax seems wrong. 

access_key: "**********"
secret_key: "************"

Answer 1

the correct syntax for the var file / vault is

aws_access_key: SECRETVWG72JTDHIFGK
aws_secret_key: OJMSECRETvTZSJlHtJnotXSEGces