Answer by Michael Mol for How to examine Jinja output in Saltstack?

Given how much time I spent weeks ago struggling with a closely-related issue, I wish I'd figured this out sooner.

The solution appears to be to use salt.modules.cp.get_template to have the Salt minion retrieve the file, render it through the templating engine and place it in a readable place:

# salt my-minion-id cp.get_template salt://network/init.sls /root/network.sls template=jinjamy-minion-id:    /root/network.sls

From there, you connect to the my-minion-id host and examine the file you placed at /root/network.sls.

This makes sense; salt.renderers.jinja is in the salt.renderers namespace, while the modules you have access to from the CLI are in the salt.modules namespace.

It also makes sense from a data visibility standpoint; template rendering happens on the minion, where grains and such are available, and I've yet to see a module that executes minion code return arbitrary output to the master (for view on the CLI, for example); the returned data is invariably well-structured and concise. (There may be such a module, but I don't know what it is. It would be a preferable solution to dropping test files onto a minion.)

edit: @gtmanfred's answer is far better and more direct, and I've accepted that one. I'm leaving this one here for informative purposes. It's not the best solution, but it does still work.