Inputs

ytt supports different input sources:

• Files & Directories

  • Those are provided via the -f/--file flag

  • ytt uses the file’s name for its internal representation

    If you have a tree like

    $ tree .
    .
    ├── dir1
    │   └── some.yaml
    └── dir2
        └── sub
            ├── another.yaml
            └── someother.yaml
    
    4 directories, 3 files
    

    and you call ytt --file dir1/some.yaml --file dir2/ ... then ytt loads

    • dir1/some.yaml as some.yaml
    • dir2/sub/another.yaml as sub/another.yaml
    • dir2/sub/someother.yaml as sub/someother.yaml

  • ytt uses a file’s extension to determine its type, e.g. a extension like yaml flags that file as “yaml-template”; you can read more about that in File Marks

  • You can change a file’s name, location, and also “type” by explicitly setting the file’s name to be used by ytt, e.g. ytt --file a/different/file.foo=dir1/some.yaml, which would mean that ytt

    • loads that file as a/different/file.foo
    • would not consider it as “yaml-template”/“yaml-plain”, but as “data”, because of its extension

    Note: this only works for files, not for directories

  • Explicitly setting file’s names can be especially useful when consuming files where you have no control over their name, like process substitutions:

    Running ytt --file <(echo 'some: yaml') (on Linux) would have the shell produce a file like /dev/fd/63 and pass that on to ytt. This file, based on it’s name “63”, would not be considered yaml and thus interpreted as “data”. To change that, you need to run ytt --file subst.yaml=<(echo 'some: yaml') to have ytt treat it as yaml.

  • ytt can also consume stdin by using -, like: ytt --file -

    Note: When using -, ytt automatically treats data on stdin as yaml, as it will use stdin as stdin.yaml, thus having an extension which flags it as “yaml-template”. If you use some other means to consume stdin, e.g. ytt --file /dev/stdin, this does not happen and ytt treats stdin as a file stdin and thus as “data”, because it has no extension marking it differently. You can still set a different file name explicitly, e.g. with ytt --file my-stdin.yaml=/dev/stdin.

  • ytt can also consume files via http/s, e.g. ytt --file https://raw.githubusercontent.com/carvel-dev/ytt/develop/.golangci.yml

  • ytt can also consume symlinks, however if a symlink’s target is not a file you have already included into the set of files ytt should consider (--file ...), ytt will not allow that and print an error. You can explicitly allow additional symlink targets via the --allow-symlink-destination ... flag.

  • To debug / inspect which files ytt considers and how it handles those, the flags --files-inspect & --debug can be helpful

• Data Values & Data Values Schemas

  You can read about how to define data-values schemas and how to consume and set Data Values and Schemas here:

  • Write Schema
  • Data Values Schema
  • Use Data Values
  • Data Values

  Generally you can provide Data Values

  • as strings
    • on the command line via the flags --data-value/-v
    • from the environment via the flag --data-values-env
    • from files via the flag --data-value-file
  • as structured data / yaml
    • on the command line via the flag --data-value-yaml
    • from the environment via the flag --data-values-env-yaml
    • from files via the flag --data-values-file