Data Files

Reusable structured data - a team roster, a pricing table - reachable from every page.

Data Files

Reusable variables (last lesson) are great for a flat, one-off fact - awkward for anything with real shape, like a team roster or a pricing table. Data files fill that gap.

Drop a docs/data/*.yaml file in your project - its whole content becomes reachable as data.<file>:

- name: Luis Majano
  role: CEO
- name: Jon Clausen
  role: CTO

{{ data.team[1].name }} is our {{ data.team[1].role }}.

A file's parsed root can be an object or an array, used exactly as parsed - no fixed shape to conform to. This is also exactly what powers the course you're reading right now: every lesson's title, order, and link in the numbered index a few pages back came from docs/data/courses.yaml, not hand-written HTML.

Consuming data

A scalar {{ data.x.y }} reference works anywhere. For looping over data - a team grid, a pricing table - there are three paths, covered in the next lesson and beyond: a magic function looping it with real BoxLang, a ::: for block straight in Markdown, or feeding it to Alpine for a client-side interactive version.

Full reference, including scope (loaded once, project-wide) and error handling: Data Files.