[Idea]: Parameterized snippet templates

[zachspar]

What problem does this solve?

When I have snippets (especially shell scripts, kubectl commands, Docker runs, config templates, teleport commands) oftentimes they contain variables, which I end up having to fix after I've pasted (or export if it's a script snippet)

ie) ${NAMESPACE}, ${IMAGE_TAG}, ${REGION}, etc.

Right now I am forced to do one of two things after copying:

• Paste it somewhere and manually find/replace the placeholders
• Or, for shell scripts, first run a bunch of export VAR=val commands in my terminal before pasting

I want to try and eliminate any editing after copy/paste and any pre-exporting of env vars. I like the idea that the text I copy from CodeCaddy already being 100% ready to paste and use

Your proposed solution

Add parameterized snippet templates with pre-copy substitution:

• Snippets can contain placeholders (${VAR_NAME}, or similar)

  • TBH, I'm not sure the best approach here (ie. posix compliant variables, or something like golang text/template helm-ish templating)

• On any template snippet, show something like a "Fill & Copy" button next to the normal Copy button

• Clicking it opens a dialog that lists every variable with:
  • Text inputs (pre-filled with optional defaults)
  • Per-project memory or profiles dropdown for the template

• Then people can:
  • Copy Filled → clipboard gets the fully substituted, ready to use text
  • Copy Raw → clipboard gets the original raw template text

This ultimately gives me a complete snippet I can paste -- no manual edits after pasting or export commands needed for shell scripts

Alternatives considered

• Manually editing after paste (what I want to try and eliminate here)
• Pre-exporting env vars, using envsubst or just plain paste

How important is this to you?

Nice to have

[KevinStirling]

This could have potential to tie in really nicely with #2 IDE integration, since IDE snippet engines already kind of account for this! It seems like most IDE's have adopted the same way vscode handles it, so maybe doing the same here would be helpful. Here's an example from the vscode docs -

// in file 'Code/User/snippets/javascript.json'
{
  "For Loop": {
    "prefix": ["for", "for-const"],
    "body": ["for (const ${2:element} of ${1:array}) {", "\t$0", "}"],
    "description": "A for loop."
  }
}

The autocomplete typically will let you tab through and populate each paramter field once the code is pasted by the IDE.

[ddymko]

@zachspar

Thanks for suggesting this!

I do like this idea quite a bit because I have found myself doing something similar which was writing caddy snippets and then locally exporting variables.

I think we can have multiple paths to handle templates

• Fill + copy as you suggested would be pretty slick and straight forward
• The other approach is I am thinking is something similar to GHA where you can define variables per snippet (and maybe globally?)
• Named variables groups. This might be overkill but riffing off of the second bullet point what if I have a snippet and I have multiple sets of variables I want to copy them with. Such as local, staging, or prod variables. Then I could easily predefine those in variable groups and when I copy + fill you could say copy + fill with prod variables

I think to start maybe copy + fill is the easiest way to get something off the ground to fit your immediate need.

Thoughts?

@KevinStirling it would be nice if we could integrate your #2 with templating as well making a much more feature rich too. By any chance do you know if this differs from IDE to IDE or if there is a standard in place for this? (or should codecaddy introduce its own templating format?)

[KevinStirling]

@ddymko I know that vscode, zed, and neovim all can accept the same json format for snippets, but other than those I think they start to vary. Sublime uses HTML and atom uses CSON files. Going with the json format seems the most appropriate to me atleast.

One format I haven't been able to track down is Jetbrains, but it seems possible to do something similar, as I came across Codiga while searching for this, and seems they support jetbrains for snippet importing. I'm assuming their may involve some kind of api access, but I have no idea to be honest.