YAML Code Management

This article explains how to control Code Management / Merging behaviour for .yaml files when using the Intent.Code.Weaving.Yaml module.

Overview

The YAML merger parses .yaml files into a graph of nodes and recursively applies code management logic to each node.

It compares the generated content from templates with the existing file (if present) on a node-by-node basis. Special instructions guide the merger on whether to ignore, merge, replace, or remove specific nodes.

Code Management Instructions

Instructions are embedded directly in the YAML as comments (e.g., # IntentIgnore) above the relevant node. These tell the merger how to treat that node during the merge process.

Node-Level Management Modes

  • # IntentFully - Intent Architect has full control over the node. Any manual changes in the existing file will be overwritten. Child nodes can override this by using a different instruction.
  • # IntentMerge - Intent Architect will add and remove generated nodes, but will not delete manually added content.
  • # IntentIgnore - Intent Architect will skip the node entirely, leaving it untouched. All child nodes are ignored as well, and cannot override this behavior.

File-Level Management Modes

Due to YAML’s structure, placing # IntentIgnore at the top of a file creates ambiguity — does it apply to the whole file or just the first node?

To resolve this, file-level instructions have been introduced:

  • # IntentFullyFile - Intent Architect has full control over the entire file. Any changes will be overwritten by the template, unless overridden on specific nodes.
  • # IntentMergeFile - Intent Architect adds and removes generated nodes, but preserves manually added content.
  • # IntentIgnoreFile - The entire file is ignored by the merger.

Example Comparison

# IntentFully
name: John Smith
age: 33

In this example, only the name field is controlled by Intent Architect.

# IntentFullyFile
name: John Smith
age: 33

Here, the entire file is managed by Intent Architect.

Default behaviour

By default, templates operate in Merge mode. This default can be changed in the settings for your application:

Yaml Merger Settings

Node Matching

The merger correlates nodes in the existing file with nodes in the generated content using:

  • Field names for object properties.
  • Order or scalar value for array items.

Matching Scalar Values in arrays

For cases where you want to replace a particular value in an array, use the (Match = "<starts with value>") parameter to the above instructions, e.g. # IntentIgnore(Match = "SomeValue").

names:
  - Alice
  - Bob
  - Charles

If you wanted to replace Bob with a value, you can do the following:

names:
  - Alice
  # IntentIgnore(Match = "Bo")
  - John
  - Charles

As Bob in the generated value starts with the string of Bo the items correlate.

Matching Objects in Arrays by Field Value

Use # IntentMatchBy above an array to specify how array items should be matched.

Consider the following generated file:

customers:
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00001
      name: Generated Name 1
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00002
      name: Generated Name 2

And you want to override just the generated name to have a different value, so you ignore the field:

customers:
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00001
      # IntentIgnore
      name: Modified Name
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00002
      name: Generated Name 2

The above won't work reliably as the merger also needs to be instructed that it should match items by the customerNumber field, which can be done as follows:

# IntentMatchBy("customerNumber")
customers:
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00001
      # IntentIgnore
      name: Modified Name
  - customer:
      customerNumber: 00002
      name: Generated Name 2

You can also match on multiple fields. In the example below both regionCode and customerNumber fields must be the same for the objects to be considered a match.

# IntentMatchBy("regionCode", "customerNumber")
customers:
  - customer:
      regionCode": 01
      customerNumber: 00001
      # IntentIgnore
      name: Modified Name
  - customer:
      regionCode": 02
      customerNumber: 00002
      name: Generated name for customer in region code 2
Note

If a template includes # IntentMatchBy in the generated content, it may not be output in the generated YAML file, but the merger will still apply the matching logic internally.