check-metadata-spacing

name	check-metadata-spacing
description	Check rendered metadata (titles, descriptions, display names) for spacing issues caused by Jinja/Jinja2 templates. Use when user mentions spacing, whitespace, Jinja rendering, or wants to verify metadata renders cleanly after editing .meta.yml files.

Check Metadata Spacing

Check that Jinja templates in .meta.yml files render without unwanted spacing artifacts (double spaces, leading/trailing whitespace, stray newlines).

When to use

• After editing .meta.yml files that use Jinja templates (<%- if %>, <<variable>>, {definitions.xxx})
• When verifying that chart metadata looks correct after template changes
• When the user asks to check for spacing or whitespace issues in metadata

Scope Options

Ask the user which scope they want to check:

1. Current step only - Check a specific dataset step (default if user is working on one)
2. All active garden steps - Check all non-archived garden steps

---

Implementation

1. Load the garden dataset and inspect rendered metadata

For a specific step, load the dataset and check all variable metadata fields for spacing issues:

.venv/bin/python -c "
from etl.paths import DATA_DIR
from owid.catalog import Dataset

ds = Dataset(DATA_DIR / '<channel>/<namespace>/<version>/<dataset>')
issues = []

for table_name in ds.table_names:
    tb = ds[table_name]
    for col in tb.columns:
        m = tb[col].metadata
        # Check title, description_short, description_processing
        for field_name in ['title', 'description_short', 'description_processing']:
            val = getattr(m, field_name, None)
            if val and ('  ' in val or val != val.strip() or '\n' in val):
                issues.append(f'{table_name}.{col}.{field_name}: {repr(val[:150])}')

        # Check description_key entries
        dk = getattr(m, 'description_key', None) or []
        for i, entry in enumerate(dk):
            if entry and ('  ' in entry or entry != entry.strip()):
                issues.append(f'{table_name}.{col}.description_key[{i}]: {repr(entry[:150])}')

        # Check display name
        display = getattr(m, 'display', None) or {}
        dn = display.get('name', '')
        if dn and ('  ' in dn or dn != dn.strip() or '\n' in dn):
            issues.append(f'{table_name}.{col}.display.name: {repr(dn[:150])}')

if issues:
    print(f'Found {len(issues)} spacing issues:')
    for i in issues:
        print(f'  {i}')
else:
    print('No spacing issues found.')
"

2. What counts as an issue

Pattern	Example	Why it's a problem
Double space	Share of children	Jinja if/else block left extra whitespace
Leading whitespace	Share of children	Template newline rendered as leading space
Trailing whitespace	Share of children	Template block left trailing space
Embedded newline	Share of\nchildren	Multi-line Jinja block not properly trimmed

3. Common Jinja fixes

If issues are found, they're typically in the .meta.yml file. Common fixes:

• Use <%- and -%> trim markers instead of <% and %> to strip whitespace around control blocks
• Use |- YAML block scalar for multi-line definitions to control trailing newlines
• Check {definitions.xxx} references — the definition itself may have leading/trailing whitespace

4. Present results

Group issues by table and field type. Show the rendered value with repr() so whitespace is visible.

If no issues are found, confirm that all templates render cleanly.

---

Notes

• This check requires the garden step to have been run already (it reads from the built dataset, not the YAML directly)
• If the dataset hasn't been built yet, run the garden step first: .venv/bin/etlr <path> --private --force --only
• The check looks at the rendered output, not the raw YAML — this catches issues that only appear after Jinja evaluation