could this be converted into a jinja2 -> sls "previewer"?

[TheBigBear]

@whytewolf I am maintaining most of the new 'salt-winrepo-ng' repo and ever since this added the ability to use and mix/in jinja2 templatized code, I find myself wondering, if it is correct and will it render, etc, when I write new 'salt-winrepo-ng' sls files. And more than once I managed to submit broken sls files that had syntax errors or were missing parts, and if I had tried rendering them before submitting them, I could have avoided those. (see saltstack/salt#28899 )

To that end I tried writing a simple python loop to rneder the jinja2 in the sls file. ( see saltstack/salt#28898 )

But I didn't get very far. But now I have seen this simple 'salt-debug' module of yours. Do you think if it used/added the 'tpldir' functionality (see saltstack/salt#28898 (comment) ) I could have it look at (or render) local files that aren't yet somewhere under the "file_roots://" on the master? (also see saltstack/salt#29063 (comment) )

Hoping that you can give helpful input on some of these?

[whytewolf]

humm interesting ideas.

I have thought of building a runner version of this for working on files directly on the master such as pillar and reactors. in the context of the master. the problem being that two many different people wrote these functions and have different methods of calling the renders that change the way the renders function.

the current version does accept file:// as a source. however I do not do anything with context currently which looks like what renders the tpldir settings. i just pass it straight through to the render engine.

I will try to see what i can come up with here when i get some time.