Datasources

Datasources are an optional, but central concept in gomplate. While the basic flow of template rendering is taking an input template and rendering it into an output, there often is need to include data from one or more sources external to the template itself.

Some common use-cases include injecting sensitive material like passwords (which should not be stored unencrypted in source-control with the templates), or providing simplified configuration formats that can be fed to a template to provide a much more complex output.

Datasources can be defined with the --datasource/-d command-line flag or the defineDatasource function, and referenced via an alias inside the template, using a function such as datasource or include. Datasources can additionally be loaded into the context with the --context/-c command-line flag.

Since datasources are defined separately from the template, the same templates can be used with different datasources and even different datasource types. For example, gomplate could be run on a developer machine with a file datasource pointing to a JSON file containing test data, where the same template could be used in a production environment using a consul datasource with the real production data.

URL Format

All datasources are defined with a URL. As a refresher, a URL is made up of the following components:

  foo://userinfo@example.com:8042/over/there?name=ferret#nose
  \_/   \_______________________/\_________/ \_________/ \__/
   |           |                    |            |        |
scheme     authority               path        query   fragment

For our purposes, the scheme and the path components are especially important, though the other components are used by certain datasources for particular purposes.

component purpose
scheme Identifies which datasource to access. All datasources require a scheme (except for file when using relative paths), and some datasources allow multiple different schemes to clarify access modes, such as consul+https
authority Used only by remote datasources, and can be omitted in some of those cases. Consists of userinfo (user:pass), host, and port.
path Can be omitted, but usually used as the basis of the locator for the datasource. If the path ends with a / character, directory semantics are used.
query Used rarely for datasources where information must be provided in order to get a reasonable reply (such as generating dynamic secrets with Vault), or for overriding MIME types
fragment Used rarely for accessing a subset of the given path

Opaque URIs

For some datasources, such as the merge, aws+sm, and aws+smp schemes, opaque URIs can be used (rather than a hierarchical URL):

scheme                   path        query   fragment
   |   _____________________|__   _______|_   _|
  / \ /                        \ /         \ /  \
  urn:example:animal:ferret:nose?name=ferret#nose

The semantics of the different URI components are essentially the same as for hierarchical URLs (see above), but the path component may not start with a / character. In gomplate’s usage, opaque URIs sometimes contain characters such as |, which require escaping with most shells. You may need to surround the datasource definition in quotes, or use the \ escape character.

Supported datasources

Gomplate supports a number of datasources, each specified with a particular URL scheme. The table below describes these datasources. The names in the Type column link to further documentation for each specific datasource.

Type URL Scheme(s) Description
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store aws+smp AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store is a hierarchically-organized key/value store which allows storage of text, lists, or encrypted secrets for retrieval by AWS resources
AWS Secrets Manager aws+sm AWS Secrets Manager helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources.
Amazon S3 s3 Amazon S3 is a popular object storage service.
Consul consul, consul+http, consul+https HashiCorp Consul provides (among many other features) a key/value store
Environment env Environment variables can be used as datasources - useful for testing
File file Files can be read in any of the supported formats, including by piping through standard input (Stdin). Directories are also supported.
Git git, git+file, git+http, git+https, git+ssh Files can be read from a local or remote git repository, at specific branches or tags. Directory semantics are also supported.
Google Cloud Storage gs Google Cloud Storage is the object storage service available on GCP, comparable to AWS S3.
HTTP http, https Data can be sourced from HTTP/HTTPS sites in many different formats. Arbitrary HTTP headers can be set with the --datasource-header/-H flag
Merged Datasources merge Merge two or more datasources together to produce the final value - useful for resolving defaults. Uses coll.Merge for merging.
Stdin stdin A special case of the file datasource; allows piping through standard input (Stdin)
Vault vault, vault+http, vault+https HashiCorp Vault is an industry-leading open-source secret management tool. List support is also available.

Directory Datasources

When the path component of the URL ends with a / character, the datasource is read with directory semantics. Not all datasource types support this, and for those that don’t support the notion of a directory, the behaviour is currently undefined. See each documentation section for details.

Currently the following datasources support directory semantics:

For example, a group of configuration key/value pairs (named one, two, and three, with values v1, v2, and v3 respectively) could be rendered like this:

template.tmpl:

{{ range (datasource "config") -}}
{{ . }} = {{ (datasource "config" .).value }}
{{- end }}
$ gomplate -d config=vault:///secret/configs/ -f template.tmpl
one = v1
two = v2
three = v3

MIME Types

Gomplate will read and parse a number of data formats. The appropriate type will be set automatically, if possible, either based on file extension (for the file, http, gs, and s3 datasources), or the HTTP Content-Type header, if available. If an unsupported type is detected, gomplate will exit with an error.

These are the supported types:

Format MIME Type Extension(s) Notes
CSV text/csv .csv Uses the data.CSV function to present the file as a 2-dimensional row-first string array
JSON application/json .json JSON objects are assumed, but will support arrays as well. Other values are not parsed with this type. Uses the data.JSON function for parsing. EJSON (encrypted JSON) is supported and will be decrypted.
JSON Array application/array+json A special type for parsing datasources containing just JSON arrays. Uses the data.JSONArray function for parsing
Plain Text text/plain Unstructured, and as such only intended for use with the include function
TOML application/toml .toml Parses TOML with the data.TOML function
YAML application/yaml .yml, .yaml Parses YAML with the data.YAML function
.env application/x-env .env Basically just a file of key=value pairs separated by newlines, usually intended for sourcing into a shell. Common in Docker Compose, Ruby, and Node.js applications. See below for more information.

Overriding MIME Types

On occasion it’s necessary to override the detected (via file extension or Content-Type header) MIME type. To accomplish this, gomplate supports a type query string parameter on datasource URLs. This can contain the same value as a standard HTTP Content-Type header.

For example, to force a file named data.txt to be parsed as a JSON document:

$ echo '{"foo": "bar"}' > /tmp/data.txt
$ gomplate -d data=file:///tmp/data.txt?type=application/json -i '{{ (ds "data").foo }}'
bar

If you need to provide a query parameter named type to the data source, set the GOMPLATE_TYPE_PARAM environment variable to another value:

$ GOMPLATE_TYPE_PARAM=content-type gomplate -d data=https://example.com/mydata?content-type=application/json -i '{{ (ds "data").foo }}'
bar

The .env file format

Many applications and frameworks support the use of a “.env” file for providing environment variables. It can also be considerd a simple key/value file format, and as such can be used as a datasource in gomplate.

To override, use the unregistered application/x-env MIME type.

Here’s a sample explaining the syntax:

FOO=a regular unquoted value
export BAR=another value, exports are ignored

# comments are totally ignored, as are blank lines
FOO.BAR = "values can be double-quoted, and\tshell\nescapes are supported"

BAZ="variable expansion: ${FOO}"
QUX='single quotes ignore $variables and newlines'

The github.com/joho/godotenv package is used for parsing - see the full details there.

Using aws+smp datasources

The aws+smp:// scheme can be used to retrieve data from the AWS Systems Manager (née AWS EC2 Simple Systems Manager) Parameter Store. This hierarchically organized key/value store allows you to store text, lists or encrypted secrets for easy retrieval by AWS resources. See the AWS Systems Manager documentation for details on creating these parameters.

You must grant gomplate permission via IAM credentials for the ssm:GetParameter action.

See details on how to configure gomplate’s AWS support in Configuring AWS.

URL Considerations

The scheme and path URL components are used by this datasource. This may be an opaque URI instead of an URL, when the key does not begin with a / character (e.g. aws+smp:myparam).

  • the scheme must be aws+smp
  • the path component is used to specify the path to the parameter (this may be a hierarchical path beginning with /, or an opaque path). Directory semantics are available when the path ends with a / character.

Output

The output will be a single Parameter object from the AWS SDK for Go:

name description
Name full Parameter name
Type String, StringList or SecureString
Value textual value, comma-separated single string if StringList
Version incrementing integer version

If the Parameter key specified is not found (or not allowed to be read due to missing permissions) an error will be generated. There is no default.

Examples

Given your AWS account’s Parameter Store has the following data:

  • /foo/first/others - Bill,Ben (a StringList)
  • /foo/first/password - super-secret (a SecureString)
  • /foo/second/p1 - aaa
  • myparameter - bar
$ echo '{{ ds "foo" }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:///foo/first/password
map[Name:/foo/first/password Type:SecureString Value:super-secret Version:1]

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo").Value }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:///foo/first/password
super-secret

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo" "/foo/first/others").Value }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:
Bill,Ben

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo" "/second/p1").Value }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:///foo/
aaa

$ gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:///foo/first/ -i '{{ range (ds "foo") }}
{{ . }}: {{ (ds "foo" .).Value }}
{{- end }}'
others: Bill,Ben
password: super-secret

$ gomplate -d foo=aws+smp:myparameter -i '{{ (ds "foo").Value }}
bar

Using aws+sm datasources

URL Considerations

For aws+sm, only the scheme and path components are necessary to be defined. This may be an opaque URI instead of an URL, when the key does not begin with a / character (e.g. aws+sm:myparam).

  • the scheme must be aws+sm
  • the path component is used to specify the path to the secret (this may be a hierarchical path beginning with /, or an opaque path)

Output

The output will be the content of either the SecretString or SecretBinary field of the AWS SDK’s GetSecretValueOutput object from the AWS SDK for Go

Examples

Given your AWS account’s Secret Manager has the following data:

  • /foo/bar/password - super-secret
  • mysecret - bar
$ echo '{{ (ds "foo") }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+sm:///foo/bar/password
super-secret

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo" "/foo/bar/password") }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+sm:
super-secret

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo" "/bar/password") }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+sm:///foo/
super-secret

$ echo '{{ (ds "foo") }}' | gomplate -d foo=aws+sm:mysecret
bar

Using s3 datasources

URL Considerations

The scheme, authority, path, and query URL components are used by this datasource.

  • the scheme must be s3
  • the authority component is used to specify the s3 bucket name
  • the path component is used to specify the path to the object. Directory semantics are available when the path ends with a / character.
  • the query component can be used to provide parameters to configure the connection:
    • region: The AWS region for requests. Defaults to the value from the AWS_REGION or AWS_DEFAULT_REGION environment variables, or the EC2 region if run in AWS EC2.
    • endpoint: The endpoint (hostname, hostname:port, or fully qualified URI). Useful for using a different S3-compatible object storage server. You can also set the AWS_S3_ENDPOINT environment variable.
    • s3ForcePathStyle: A value of true forces use of the deprecated “path-style” access. This is necessary for some S3-compatible object storage servers.
    • disableSSL: A value of true disables SSL when sending requests. Use only for test scenarios!
    • type: can be used to override the MIME type

URL Examples

Here are a few examples to help explain s3 URLs:

  • s3://mybucket/config/file.json
    • the bucket region will be inferred, and the blob config/file.json in the mybucket bucket will be located in Amazon S3.
  • s3://mybucket/
    • The contents of the bucket mybucket will be listed into an array. Note that only the last portion of the path (the file name) will be listed.
  • s3://mybucket/config/file?region=eu-west-1
    • same as the first example, except the bucket’s region is overridden to eu-west-1
    • the lack of file extension means that file will be parsed according to the file’s Content-Type metadata
  • s3://mybucket/config/file.json?endpoint=localhost:5432&disableSSL=true&s3ForcePathStyle=true
    • this example is typical of a scenario where an S3-compatible server (such as Minio, Zenko CloudServer, or testing-focused servers such as gofakes3)
    • the endpoint is overridden to be a server running on localhost
    • encryption is disabled since the endpoint is local
    • “path-style” access is used - this is typical for local servers, or scenarios where modifying DNS is impossible or impractical

Output

The output will be the object contents, parsed based on the discovered MIME type.

Examples

Given the S3 bucket named my-bucket has the following objects:

  • foo/bar.json - {"hello": "world"}
  • foo/baz.txt - hello world
$ gomplate -c foo=s3://my-bucket/foo/bar.json -i 'Hello {{ .foo.hello }}'
Hello world

$ gomplate -c foo=s3://my-bucket/foo/ -i 'my-bucket/foo contains:{{ range .foo }}{{ print "\n" . }}{{ end }}'
my-bucket/foo contains:
bar.json
baz.txt

$ gomplate -c foo=s3://my-bucket/foo/bar.json?region=eu-west-1 -i 'Hello {{ .foo.hello }}'
Hello world

$ gomplate -c foo=s3://my-bucket/foo/bar.json?region=eu-west-1&
endpoint=my-test-site& -i 'Hello {{ .foo.hello }}'
Hello world

$ gomplate -d bucket=s3://my-bucket/?region=eu-west-1&endpoint=my-test-site& -i 'Hello {{ (ds "bucket" "/foo/bar.json").hello }}'
Hello world

Using consul datasources

Gomplate supports retrieving data from HashiCorp Consul’s KV Store.

URL Considerations

For consul, the scheme, authority, and path components are used.

  • the scheme URL component can be one of three values: consul, consul+http, and consul+https. The first two are equivalent, while the third instructs the client to connect to Consul over an encrypted HTTPS connection. Encryption can alternately be enabled by use of the $CONSUL_HTTP_SSL environment variable.
  • the authority is used to specify the server to connect to (e.g. consul://localhost:8500), but if not specified, the $CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR environment variable will be used.
  • the path can be provided to select a specific key, or a key prefix

Consul Environment Variables

The following optional environment variables are understood by the Consul datasource:

name usage
CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR Hostname and optional port for connecting to Consul. Defaults to http://localhost:8500
CONSUL_TIMEOUT Timeout (in seconds) when communicating to Consul. Defaults to 10 seconds.
CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN The Consul token to use when connecting to the server.
CONSUL_HTTP_AUTH Should be specified as <username>:<password>. Used to authenticate to the server.
CONSUL_HTTP_SSL Force HTTPS if set to true value. Disables if set to false. Any value acceptable to strconv.ParseBool can be provided.
CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting to Consul via TLS.
CONSUL_CACERT Path to CA file for verifying Consul server using TLS.
CONSUL_CAPATH Path to directory of CA files for verifying Consul server using TLS.
CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT Client certificate file for certificate authentication. If this is set, $CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY must also be set.
CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY Client key file for certificate authentication. If this is set, $CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT must also be set.
CONSUL_HTTP_SSL_VERIFY Set to false to disable Consul TLS certificate checking. Any value acceptable to strconv.ParseBool can be provided. Recommended only for testing and development scenarios!
CONSUL_VAULT_ROLE Set to the name of the role to use for authenticating to Consul with Vault’s Consul secret backend.
CONSUL_VAULT_MOUNT Used to override the mount-point when using Vault’s Consul secret back-end for authentication. Defaults to consul.

Authentication

Instead of using a non-authenticated Consul connection, you can authenticate with these methods:

  • provide an ACL Token in the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable
  • use HTTP Basic Auth by setting the CONSUL_HTTP_AUTH environment variable
  • dynamically generate an ACL token with Vault. This requires Vault to be configured to use the Consul secret backend and is enabled by passing the name of the role to use in the CONSUL_VAULT_ROLE environment variable.

Examples

$ gomplate -d consul=consul:// -i '{{(datasource "consul" "foo")}}'
value for foo key

$ gomplate -d consul=consul+https://my-consul-server.com:8533/foo -i '{{(datasource "consul" "bar")}}'
value for foo/bar key

$ gomplate -d consul=consul:///foo -i '{{(datasource "consul" "bar/baz")}}'
value for foo/bar/baz key

Using env datasources

The env datasource type provides access to environment variables. This can be useful for rendering templates that would normally use a different sort of datasource, in test and development scenarios.

No hierarchy or directory semantics are currently supported.

Note: Variable names are case-sensitive!

URL Considerations

The scheme and either the path or the opaque part are used, and the query component can be used to override the MIME type.

  • the scheme must be env
  • one of the path or opaque component is required, and is interpreted as the environment variable’s name. Leading / characters are stripped from the path.

Examples

$ gomplate -d user=env:USER -i 'Hello {{ include "user" }}!'
Hello hairyhenderson!

$ gomplate -d homedir=env:///HOME -i '{{ file.IsDir (ds "homedir") }}'
true

$ export foo='{"one":1, "two":2}'
$ gomplate -d foo=env:/foo?type=application/json -i '{{ (ds "foo").two }}'
2

Using file datasources

The file datasource type provides access to files in any of the supported formats. Directory datasource semantics are supported.

URL Considerations

The scheme and path are used, and the query component can be used to override the MIME type.

  • the scheme must be file for absolute URLs, but may be omitted to allow setting relative paths
  • the path component is required, and can be an absolute or relative path, and if the file being referenced is in the current working directory, the file’s base name (without extension) is used as the datasource alias in absence of an explicit alias. Directory semantics are available when the path ends with a / character.

Examples

person.json:

{
  "name": "Dave"
}

implicit alias:

$ gomplate -d person.json -i 'Hello {{ (datasource "person").name }}'
Hello Dave

explicit alias:

$ gomplate -d person=./person.json -i 'Hello {{ (datasource "person").name }}'
Hello Dave

$ gomplate -d person=../path/to/person.json -i 'Hello {{ (datasource "person").name }}'
Hello Dave

$ gomplate -d person=file:///tmp/person.json -i 'Hello {{ (datasource "person").name }}'
Hello Dave

Using git datasources

The git datasource type provides access to files in any of the supported formats hosted in local or remote git repositories. Directory datasource semantics are supported.

Remote repositories can be accessed by SSH, HTTP(S), and Git protocols.

Note that this datasource accesses the git state, and so for local filesystem repositories, any files not committed to a branch (i.e. “dirty” or modified files) will not be visible.

URL Considerations

The scheme, authority (with userinfo), path, and fragment are used, and the query component can be used to override the MIME type.

  • the scheme may be one of these values:
  • the authority component points to the remote git server hostname (and optional port, if applicable). The userinfo subcomponent can be used for authenticated datasources like git+https and git+ssh.
  • the path component is a composite of the path to the repository, and the path to the file or directory being referenced within. The // sequence (double forward-slash) is used to separate the repository from the path. If no // is present in the URL, the datasource will point to the root directory of the repository.
  • the fragment component can be used to specify which branch or tag to reference. By default, the repository’s default branch will be chosen.
    • branches can be referenced by short name or by the long form. Valid fragments are #main, #master, #develop, #refs/heads/mybranch, etc…
    • tags must use the long form prefixed by refs/tags/, i.e. #refs/tags/v1 for the v1 tag

Authentication

The git and git+file schemes are always unauthenticated, git+http/git+https can optionally be authenticated, and git+ssh must be authenticated.

Authenticating with both HTTP and SSH requires the user to be set (like git+ssh://user@example.com), but the credentials vary otherwise.

HTTP(S) Authentication

Note that because HTTP connections are unencypted, and HTTP authentication is performed with headers, it is strongly recommended to only use HTTPS (git+https) connections when accessing authenticated repositories.

Basic Auth

The most common form. The password can be specified as part of the URL, or provided through the GIT_HTTP_PASSWORD environment variable, or in a file referenced by the GIT_HTTP_PASSWORD_FILE environment variable.

For authenticating with GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab and other popular git hosts, use this method with a personal access token, and the user set to git.

Token Auth

Some servers require the use of a bearer token. To use this method, a user is not required, and the token must be set in the GIT_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable, or in a file referenced by the GIT_HTTP_TOKEN_FILE environment variable.

SSH Authentication

Only public key based authentication is supported for git+ssh connections. The key can be provided directly, or via the SSH Agent (or Pageant on Windows).

To provide a key directly, set the GIT_SSH_KEY to the contents of the key, or point GIT_SSH_KEY_FILE to a file containing the key. Because the file may contain newline characters that may be difficult to provide in an environment variable, it can also be Base64-encoded.

If neither GIT_SSH_KEY nor GIT_SSH_KEY_FILE are set, gomplate will attempt to use the SSH Agent.

Note: password-protected SSH keys are currently not supported. If you have a password-protected key, use the SSH Agent.

Examples

Accessing a file in a publicly-readable GitHub repository:

$ gomplate -c doc=git+https://github.com/hairyhenderson/gomplate//docs-src/content/functions/env.yml -i 'namespace is: {{ .doc.ns }}'
namespace is: env

Accessing a file from a local repo (using arguments):

$ gomplate -d which=git+file:///repos/go-which/ -i 'GOPATH on Windows is {{ (datasource "which" ".//appveyor.yml").environment.GOPATH }}'
GOPATH on Windows is c:\gopath

Accessing a directory at a specific tag:

$ gomplate -d 'cmd=git+https://github.com/hairyhenderson/go-which//cmd/which#refs/tags/v0.1.0' -i '{{ ds "cmd" }}'
[main.go]

Authenticating with the SSH Agent

$ gomplate -d 'which=git+ssh://git@github.com/hairyhenderson/go-which/' -i '{{ len (ds "which") }}'
18

Using arguments to specify different repos

$ gomplate -d 'hairyhenderson=git+https://github.com/hairyhenderson/' -i '{{ (ds "hairyhenderson" "gomplate//docs-src/content/functions/env.yml").ns }}'
env

Using Google Cloud Storage (gs) datasources

URL Considerations

The scheme, authority, path, and query URL components are used by this datasource.

Authentication

All gs datasources need credentials, provided by the GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS environment variable. This should point to an authentication configuration JSON file.

See Google Cloud’s Getting Started with Authentication documentation for details.

Output

The output will be the object contents, parsed based on the discovered MIME type.

Examples

Given the bucket named my-bucket has the following objects:

  • foo/bar.json - {"hello": "world"}
  • foo/baz.txt - hello world
$ gomplate -c foo=gs://my-bucket/foo/bar.json -i 'Hello {{ .foo.hello }}'
Hello world

$ gomplate -c foo=gs://my-bucket/foo/ -i 'my-bucket/foo contains:{{ range .foo }}{{ print "\n" . }}{{ end }}'
my-bucket/foo contains:
bar.json
baz.txt

Using http datasources

To access datasources from HTTP sites or APIs, simply use a http or https URL:

$ gomplate -d foo=https://httpbin.org/get -i 'Hello there, {{ (ds "foo").headers.Host }}...'
Hello there, httpbin.org...
$ gomplate -d foo=https://httpbin.org/get -i '{{ $d := ds "foo" }}Hello there, {{ $d.headers.Host }}, you are looking very {{ index $d.headers "User-Agent" }} today...'
Hello there, httpbin.org, you are looking very Go-http-client/1.1 today...

Sending HTTP headers

Additional headers can be provided with the --datasource-header/-H option:

$ gomplate -d foo=https://httpbin.org/get -H 'foo=Foo: bar' -i '{{(datasource "foo").headers.Foo}}'
bar

This can be useful for providing API tokens to authenticated HTTP-based APIs.

Using merge datasources

The merge scheme can be used to merge two or more other datasources together.

merge: uses an opaque URI format, where the path component is a list of datasource aliases or URLs, separated by the | character. The datasources are read and merged together from right to left (i.e. the left-most datasource values override those to the right).

Multiple different formats can be mixed, as long as they produce maps with string keys as their data type.

The coll.Merge function is used to perform the merge operation.

Merging separately-defined datasources

Consider this example:

$ gomplate -d "foo=merge:foo|bar|baz" -d foo=... -d bar=... -d baz=... ...

This will read the foo, bar, and baz datasources (which must be otherwise defined), and then overlay bar’s values on top of baz’s, then foo’s values on top of those.

The disadvantage with this option is verbosity, but the advantage is that the individual datasources can still be referenced.

Merging datasources defined in-line

Here’s an example using URLs instead of aliases:

$ gomplate -d "foo=merge:./config/main.yaml|http://example.com/defaults.json" ...

This has the advantage of being slightly less verbose. Note that relative URLs in a subdirectory are supported in this context, as well as any other supported datasource URL.

A caveat to defining datasources in-line is that the query and fragment components of the URI are interpreted as part of the merge: URI. To merge datasources with query strings or fragments, define separate sources first and use the aliases. Similarly, extra HTTP headers can only be defined for separately- defined datasources.

Using stdin datasources

Normally Stdin is used as the input for the template, but it can also be used to stream a datasource. To do this, specify a URL with the stdin: scheme.

In order for structured input to be correctly parsed, the URL can be given a “fake” file name with a supported extension, or the MIME type can be explicitly set. If the input is unstructured (i.e. if the data is being included verbatim with the include function), the scheme alone is enough.

$ echo 'foo: bar' | gomplate -i '{{(ds "data").foo}}' -d data=stdin:///foo.yaml
bar
$ echo 'foo' | gomplate -i '{{ include "data" }}' -d data=stdin:
foo
$ echo '["one", "two"]' | gomplate -i '{{index (ds "data") 1 }}' -d data=stdin:?type=application/array%2Bjson
two

Using vault datasources

Gomplate can retrieve secrets and other data from HashiCorp Vault.

URL Considerations

The scheme, authority, path, and query URL components are used by this datasource.

  • the scheme must be one of vault, vault+https (same as vault), or vault+http. The latter can be used to access dev mode Vault servers, for test purposes. Otherwise, all connections to Vault are encrypted with TLS.
  • the authority component can optionally be used to specify the Vault server’s hostname and port. This overrides the value of $VAULT_ADDR.
  • the path component can optionally be used to specify a full or partial path to a secret. The second argument to the datasource function is appended to provide the full secret path. Directory semantics are available when the path ends with a / character.
  • the query component is used to provide parameters to dynamic secret back-ends that require these. The values are included in the JSON body of the POST request. The version parameter in particular can be used to specify the version of a secret when using the KV v2 secrets engine.

These are all valid vault URLs:

  • vault:, vault://, vault:/// - these all require the datasource function to provide the secret path
  • vault://vault.example.com:8200 - connect to vault.example.com over HTTPS at port 8200. The path will be provided by datasource
  • vault:///ssh/creds/foo?ip=10.1.2.3&username=user - create a dynamic secret with the parameters ip and username provided in the body
  • vault:///secret/configs/ - returns a list of key names with the prefix of secret/configs/

KV secrets engine - version 2 support

Vault’s KV secrets engine version 2 is supported automatically. In order to access specific versions of secrets, you may provide the version query parameter.

Vault Authentication

This table describes the currently-supported authentication mechanisms and how to use them, in order of precedence:

auth back-end configuration
approle Environment variables $VAULT_ROLE_ID and $VAULT_SECRET_ID must be set to the appropriate values. If the back-end is mounted to a different location, set $VAULT_AUTH_APPROLE_MOUNT.
github Environment variable $VAULT_AUTH_GITHUB_TOKEN must be set to an appropriate value. If the back-end is mounted to a different location, set $VAULT_AUTH_GITHUB_MOUNT.
userpass Environment variables $VAULT_AUTH_USERNAME and $VAULT_AUTH_PASSWORD must be set to the appropriate values. If the back-end is mounted to a different location, set $VAULT_AUTH_USERPASS_MOUNT.
token Determined from either the $VAULT_TOKEN environment variable, or read from the file ~/.vault-token
aws The env var $VAULT_AUTH_AWS_ROLE defines the role to log in with - defaults to the AMI ID of the EC2 instance. Usually a Client Nonce should be used as well. Set $VAULT_AUTH_AWS_NONCE to the nonce value. The nonce can be generated and stored by setting $VAULT_AUTH_AWS_NONCE_OUTPUT to a path on the local filesystem.If the back-end is mounted to a different location, set $VAULT_AUTH_AWS_MOUNT.

Note: The secret values listed in the above table can either be set in environment variables or provided in files. This can increase security when using Docker Swarm Secrets, for example. To use files, specify the filename by appending _FILE to the environment variable, (i.e. VAULT_USER_ID_FILE). If the non-file variable is set, this will override any _FILE variable and the secret file will be ignored.

Vault Permissions

The correct capabilities must be allowed for the authenticated credentials. See the Vault documentation for full details.

  • regular secret read operations require the read capability
  • dynamic secret generation requires the create and update capabilities
  • list support requires the list capability

Vault Environment variables

In addition to the variables documented above, a number of environment variables are interpreted by the Vault client, and are documented in the official Vault documentation.

Examples

$ gomplate -d vault=vault:///secret/sneakers -i 'My voice is my passport. {{(datasource "vault").value}}' 
My voice is my passport. Verify me.

For KV v2 secrets engine, specifying a version:

$ gomplate -d vault=vault:///kv2/sneakers?version=2 -i 'My voice is my passport. {{(datasource "vault").data.value}}'
My voice is my passport. Verify me.

You can also specify the secret path in the template by omitting the path portion of the URL:

$ gomplate -d vault=vault:/// -i 'My voice is my passport. {{(datasource "vault" "secret/sneakers").value}}'
My voice is my passport. Verify me.

And the two can be mixed to scope secrets to a specific namespace:

$ gomplate -d vault=vault:///secret/production -i 'db_password={{(datasource "vault" "db/pass").value}}' 
db_password=prodsecret

If you are unable to set the VAULT_ADDR environment variable, or need to specify multiple Vault datasources connecting to different servers, you can set the address as part of the URL:

$ gomplate -d v=vault://vaultserver.com/secret/foo -i '{{ (ds "v").value }}'
bar

To use dynamic secrets:

$ gomplate -d vault=vault:/// -i 'otp={{(ds "vault" "ssh/creds/test?ip=10.1.2.3&username=user").key}}'
otp=604a4bd5-7afd-30a2-d2d8-80c4aebc6183

With the AWS auth back-end:

$ export VAULT_AUTH_AWS_NONCE_FILE=/tmp/vault-aws-nonce
$ export VAULT_AUTH_AWS_NONCE_OUTPUT=$VAULT_AUTH_AWS_NONCE_FILE
$ gomplate -d vault=vault:///secret/foo -i '{{ (ds "vault").value }}'
...

The file /tmp/vault-aws-nonce will be created if it didn’t already exist, and further executions of gomplate can re-authenticate securely.