Skip to content

YAML Basics

OfficialEye uses the YAML (.yml) format for all configuration files.

What is YAML?

YAML is a data-serialization language that is both readable for humans and easily parseable by computers.

YAML is key: "value" based. This means you use a key to get a certain value. Values should be surrounded by double quotes ("..."). This can be demonstrated using the following example.

YAML Data Format
key: "value"
cat: "Some text data about the cat"

Now the key cat can be used to obtain Some text data about the cat.

Keys and values can also be nested into each other. Then they must be indented with two spaces.

Nested YAML
outer_name:
  inner_name: "inner_value"
  another_key: "OfficialEye is great!"

Tabs are not supported. Use spaces instead.

Further reading

For more information about the YAML format, we refer you to this tutorial. Note that in fact, due to security and compatibility reasons, OfficialEye uses only a subset of YAML called strictyaml, meaning that not all YAML features are supported.