diff --git a/roles/nextcloud/tasks/main.yml b/roles/nextcloud/tasks/main.yml
index 76349af30..b019ba975 100644
--- a/roles/nextcloud/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/roles/nextcloud/tasks/main.yml
@@ -18,6 +18,12 @@
 # CHECK FOR PHP VERSION AUTOMATICALLY, TO DETERMINE WHICH NEXTCLOUD TO INSTALL.
 # INSPIRED BY: github.com/iiab/iiab/blob/master/roles/nodejs/tasks/main.yml#L10-L54
 
+# NOTE: php installation is mandatory due to 0-init/tasks/main.yml, which forces
+# this in roles/mysql/tasks/main.yml, as invoked by 3-base-server/tasks/main.yml
+
+# NOTE: the 3 stanzas below would still work even if php was not installed,
+# correctly setting variable 'php_new' to False.
+
 - name: Try to run 'php -v' to get PHP version
   # e.g. converts multi-line "PHP 7.0.33-0ubuntu0.16.04.5 (cli) ( NTS ) ..." to "7.0.33"
   shell: php -v | head -1 | sed 's/^[^0-9.]*//' | sed 's/[^0-9.].*//'