diff --git a/test/sanity/code-smell/no-underscore-variable.sh b/test/sanity/code-smell/no-underscore-variable.sh
index 45170b10698..c013c0a9a29 100755
--- a/test/sanity/code-smell/no-underscore-variable.sh
+++ b/test/sanity/code-smell/no-underscore-variable.sh
@@ -5,18 +5,130 @@
 # variable names).  Adding to an existing test may be hard as we may have many
 # other things that are not compliant with that test.
 
+# These files currently use _ as a variable.  Fix them and then remove them
+# from this list note that we're not sure if we'll translate module return
+# values.  If we decide never to do that, then we can stop checking for those.
 
-# Need to fix everything in the whitelist in order to enable a pylint test.
-# We've settled on "dummy" as the variable to replace dummy variables with
-# (vast majority of these cases)
-#
-# before enabling *this* test, we need to create a full list of files which we need to fix
-# Can use the base find command to help generate that list
-#   find . -name '*.py' -type f -exec egrep -H '( |[^C]\()_( |,|\))' \{\} \+
-#
+TO_BE_FIXED='
+./contrib/inventory/gce.py
+./lib/ansible/cli/console.py
+./lib/ansible/compat/selectors/_selectors2.py
+./lib/ansible/executor/playbook_executor.py
+./lib/ansible/executor/task_queue_manager.py
+./lib/ansible/module_utils/facts/network/linux.py
+./lib/ansible/module_utils/urls.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/data_pipeline.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_group_facts.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_vpc_nat_gateway.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/ec2_vpc_vpn.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/efs.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/efs_facts.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/kinesis_stream.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/route53_zone.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/amazon/s3_sync.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/azure/azure_rm_loadbalancer.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/docker/_docker.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/docker/docker_container.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/docker/docker_service.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_eip.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_img.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_instance_template.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_lb.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_mig.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_net.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_pd.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_snapshot.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gce_tag.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gcp_backend_service.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/google/gcp_healthcheck.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/cloud/lxc/lxc_container.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/clustering/oc.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/files/copy.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/files/patch.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/files/synchronize.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/statusio_maintenance.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/zabbix/zabbix_maintenance.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/net_tools/basics/uri.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/cloudengine/ce_acl.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/cloudengine/ce_command.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/cloudengine/ce_dldp_interface.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/cloudengine/ce_mlag_interface.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/cloudvision/cv_server_provision.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/f5/bigip_remote_syslog.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/dladm_etherstub.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/dladm_iptun.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/dladm_linkprop.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/dladm_vlan.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/dladm_vnic.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/flowadm.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/ipadm_addr.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/ipadm_addrprop.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/ipadm_if.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/ipadm_ifprop.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/illumos/ipadm_prop.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/network/vyos/vyos_command.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/packaging/language/pip.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/packaging/os/yum.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/source_control/git.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/alternatives.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/beadm.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/cronvar.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/dconf.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/filesystem.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/gconftool2.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/interfaces_file.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/iptables.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/java_cert.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/lvg.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/lvol.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/parted.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/timezone.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/system/ufw.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/utilities/logic/wait_for.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/letsencrypt.py
+./lib/ansible/modules/web_infrastructure/rundeck_acl_policy.py
+./lib/ansible/parsing/vault/__init__.py
+./lib/ansible/playbook/base.py
+./lib/ansible/playbook/helpers.py
+./lib/ansible/playbook/role/__init__.py
+./lib/ansible/playbook/taggable.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/callback/hipchat.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/connection/lxc.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/filter/core.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/lookup/sequence.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/strategy/__init__.py
+./lib/ansible/plugins/strategy/linear.py
+./test/legacy/cleanup_gce.py
+./test/legacy/gce_credentials.py
+./test/runner/importer.py
+./test/runner/lib/cloud/cs.py
+./test/runner/lib/core_ci.py
+./test/runner/lib/delegation.py
+./test/runner/lib/docker_util.py
+./test/runner/lib/executor.py
+./test/runner/lib/http.py
+./test/runner/lib/import_analysis.py
+./test/runner/lib/manage_ci.py
+./test/runner/lib/target.py
+./test/runner/lib/util.py
+./test/sanity/validate-modules/main.py
+./test/units/executor/test_play_iterator.py
+./test/units/module_utils/basic/test_run_command.py
+./test/units/modules/cloud/amazon/test_ec2_vpc_nat_gateway.py
+./test/units/modules/cloud/amazon/test_ec2_vpc_vpn.py
+./test/units/modules/system/interfaces_file/test_interfaces_file.py
+'
+
+for FILE in $TO_BE_FIXED ; do
+        GREP_FORMAT_WHITELIST="$GREP_FORMAT_WHITELIST -e $FILE"
+done
+
+# GREP_FORMAT_WHITELIST has been formatted so that wordsplitting is wanted.  Therefore no double quotes around the var
+# shellcheck disable=SC2086
 underscore_as_variable=$(find . -path ./test/runner/.tox -prune \
         -path ./contrib/inventory/gce.py \
-        -o -name '*.py' -type f -exec egrep -H '( |[^C]\()_( |,|\))' \{\} \+ )
+        -o -name '*.py' -type f -exec egrep -H '( |[^C]\()_( |,|\))' \{\} \+ | egrep -v $GREP_FORMAT_WHITELIST )
 
 
 if test -n "$underscore_as_variable" ; then
diff --git a/test/sanity/code-smell/skip.txt b/test/sanity/code-smell/skip.txt
index 68e39f16240..bfb8b181a2b 100644
--- a/test/sanity/code-smell/skip.txt
+++ b/test/sanity/code-smell/skip.txt
@@ -1,2 +1 @@
 inappropriately-private.sh
-no-underscore-variable.sh