Data variables

Data variables are short strings of reusable text that are substituted when the website builds Markdown content.

Store variables in .yml or .yaml files in this directory. Every file lives under the variables namespace (matching this directory's name), and the relative path, filename without its extension, and YAML keys form the rest of the dot-separated variable path.

Each file is a flat list of key: value entries. To give a variable a multi-segment path, put dots directly in the key — for example, data/variables/foo/bar.yml:

meaning_of_life: 42

nested.values.too: Yes!

These values can be used in Markdown bodies or string-valued YAML frontmatter:

{% data variables.foo.bar.meaning_of_life %}

{% data variables.foo.bar.nested.values.too %}

A file at data/variables/product.yml is referenced as variables.product.<key>.

Directives can be embedded in a longer string. Values used by a directive must resolve to a string. Missing paths, malformed YAML, namespace collisions, and values that resolve to an object or an empty value fail the website build with the source file and variable path in the error.

Supported YAML subset

Variable files are parsed by a small, dependency-free parser rather than a full YAML implementation, so only the following is supported:

• Comments (#) and blank lines
• Flat key: value entries, one per line — no indentation-based nested mappings and no block sequences (- item); every line must start at column 0, and any indented line fails the build with a clear error
• Scalars: every value is substituted as literal text exactly as written (there is no true/false/number/null type coercion, since values are always inserted into Markdown as text either way). Wrap a value in single or double quotes only if it needs leading/trailing whitespace preserved, or contains a # or : that would otherwise be misread as a comment or as the key/value separator. A double-quoted value supports \", \\, \n, and \t escapes; a single-quoted value supports '' as an escaped '.

YAML anchors (&name), aliases (*name), and flow-style collections ({...}/[...]) are not supported and fail the build with a clear error. To reuse a value in more than one place, reference the same variable path multiple times, or duplicate the literal value across variables.