decocms 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
--strictwhile 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).