templating

name	templating
description	Render any text file (HTML, markdown, config, SQL, email) from a mustache template plus JSON data. Use when an output's shape is fixed ahead of time and only the values change.

templating — fill data into text-file templates

Render any text file (HTML, markdown, config, SQL, email, …) from a mustache template plus JSON data. Use this whenever the shape of an output is known ahead of time and only the values change — it is faster and less error-prone than writing the file by hand.

Other skills build on this one (e.g. slides composes presentation decks from slide templates).

Quick reference

Task	Command
Render with inline data	create-from-template --template t.html --data '{"name":"Ada"}' --output out.html
Render with a data file	create-from-template --template t.html --data @data.json --output out.html
Fail on missing keys	add --strict
Overwrite existing output	add -f
Use partials ({{>name}})	add --partials-dir ./partials

The command prints the absolute output path on success and exits non-zero with a message on any error (bad JSON, missing template, existing output without -f, missing keys under --strict).

Template syntax (mustache)

Syntax	Meaning
{{name}}	Insert value, HTML-escaped
{{{name}}}	Insert value raw (no escaping) — for trusted HTML fragments
{{#items}}…{{/items}}	Repeat block for each array item; also renders for truthy values
{{.}}	The current item inside a list block
{{^items}}…{{/items}}	Render block only when the value is empty/falsy/missing
{{user.name}}	Dotted path lookup
{{>header}}	Include partial header (resolved from --partials-dir as header or header.html)
{{!comment}}	Comment, never rendered

Example:

<ul>
  {{#items}}<li><b>{{label}}</b>: {{value}}</li>{{/items}}
  {{^items}}<li>No items</li>{{/items}}
</ul>

create-from-template --template list.template.html \
  --data '{"items":[{"label":"CPU","value":"42%"}]}' \
  --output list.html

Workflow tips

• Keep data in a JSON file (--data @data.json) when it is more than a couple of fields — easier to iterate on than a long inline string.
• Use --strict while developing a template to catch typos in key names; drop it when optional keys are intentional.
• Templates are plain text files — author your own anywhere (the org home folder under org/home/templates/ is a good durable place for organization-wide templates).