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Verifying Templates

chezmoi apply renders every *.tmpl file through Go's templating engine. A typo in an action ({{ ... }}), an unbalanced {{ if }}, or a renamed .chezmoidata key makes the render fail — and on a fresh machine that surfaces mid-bootstrap, the worst possible time. The template verification check catches these in the source repo first.

What runs​

make verify-templates

This renders every managed template under home/ and fails if any template does not render. It is also part of make check (and therefore the pre-commit hook), so any commit that touches a .tmpl is validated automatically.

Under the hood it calls scripts/verify_templates.py, which:

  • discovers every *.tmpl under home/
  • skips chezmoi's own config template (.chezmoi.toml.tmpl), which uses interactive prompt* functions that exist only during chezmoi init, not chezmoi execute-template
  • pipes each file through chezmoi execute-template and reports any that fail, with the chezmoi error line

Scope​

This is a render/parse check that runs locally, where template functions that read the host or secrets (lookPath, output, pass, 1Password, and friends) resolve normally. It verifies that templates render; it does not assert the rendered content.

When it fails​

The output names the offending file and the chezmoi error:

template verification failed (1/49 did not render):
  ✗ home/dot_config/example/something.tmpl
      template: stdin:12: unexpected EOF

Render the single file to iterate on the fix:

chezmoi execute-template < home/path/to/file.tmpl

See also Debugging Chezmoi Hooks.