Using set_facts and with_items together in Ansible

As mentioned in other people's comments, the top solution given here was not working for me in Ansible 2.2, particularly when also using with_items.

It appears that OP's intended approach does work now with a slight change to the quoting of item.

- set_fact: something="{{ something + [ item ] }}"
  with_items:
    - one
    - two
    - three

And a longer example where I've handled the initial case of the list being undefined and added an optional when because that was also causing me grief:

- set_fact: something="{{ something|default([]) + [ item ] }}"
  with_items:
    - one
    - two
    - three
  when: item.name in allowed_things.item_list

There is a workaround which may help. You may "register" results for each set_fact iteration and then map that results to list:

---
- hosts: localhost
  tasks:
  - name: set fact
    set_fact: foo_item="{{ item }}"
    with_items:
      - four
      - five
      - six
    register: foo_result

  - name: make a list
    set_fact: foo="{{ foo_result.results | map(attribute='ansible_facts.foo_item') | list }}"

  - debug: var=foo

Output:

< TASK: debug var=foo >
 ---------------------
    \   ^__^
     \  (oo)\_______
        (__)\       )\/\
            ||----w |
            ||     ||


ok: [localhost] => {
    "var": {
        "foo": [
            "four", 
            "five", 
            "six"
        ]
    }
}