Date and Encoding functions

Pipeline note. ${value | f x} desugars to f(value, x) — the piped subject becomes the first argument (value), and tokens after the function name become trailing arguments.

Date functions

Date formatting accepts either a Go reference layout (e.g. 2006-01-02) or a strftime-style string containing % tokens:

• If the format contains no %, it is used unchanged (Go reference layout).
• Otherwise each %X token is translated to its Go fragment. %% emits a literal %; unrecognized tokens pass through.

strftime → Go layout

Token	Go	Meaning	Token	Go	Meaning
%Y	2006	4-digit year	%H	15	hour (24h)
%y	06	2-digit year	%I	03	hour (12h)
%m	01	month	%M	04	minute
%B	January	month name	%S	05	second
%b/%h	Jan	abbrev month	%p	PM	AM/PM
%d	02	day (0-pad)	%P	pm	am/pm
%e	_2	day (space-pad)	%Z	MST	tz abbrev
%a	Mon	abbrev weekday	%z	-0700	tz offset
%A	Monday	weekday	%j	002	day of year

Time coercion. A time.Time is used as-is; a string is parsed trying RFC3339, RFC3339Nano, 2006-01-02T15:04:05Z, then 2006-01-02; anything else errors expected time.Time or RFC3339 string, got <type>.

now

now(value) → time.Time

Returns the current local time. Ignores value, but must be called with an argument (a bare now identifier evaluates to null); pass any value, e.g. now "".

Examples

${now "" | date "2006-01-02"}   → 2026-07-19 (shape; value is the current date)

date

date(value, fmt) → string

Formats time value using fmt (Go layout or strftime). Errors date requires a format argument without fmt.

Param	Type	Description
value	time.Time / RFC3339 / 2006-01-02 string	time to format
fmt	string	Go layout or strftime

Examples

${now "" | date "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"}             → 2026-07-19 03:29 (shape; varies)
${"2026-07-18T09:30:00Z" | date "Mon Jan 2"} → Sat Jul 18
${"2026-07-18" | date "%A"}                   → Saturday

dateInZone

dateInZone(value, fmt, zone) → string

Like date but converts to IANA zone first. Errors without both args, or dateInZone: invalid zone "<zone>" on an unknown zone.

Param	Type	Description
value	time	time to format
fmt	string	layout
zone	string	IANA zone (e.g. America/New_York, UTC)

Examples

${"2026-07-18T12:00:00Z" | dateInZone "2006-01-02 15:04 MST" "America/New_York"}
    → 2026-07-18 08:00 EDT

toDate

toDate(value, fmt) → time.Time

Parses string value into a time using layout fmt. Errors toDate: failed to parse "<value>" on failure.

Param	Type	Description
value	string	text to parse
fmt	string	layout describing value

Examples

${"18/07/2026" | toDate "%d/%m/%Y" | date "%A"}   → Saturday

ago

ago(value) → string

Elapsed duration since value (time.Since in Go duration form, e.g. 1h30m0s).

Examples

${"2026-07-18T12:00:00Z" | ago}   → 13h29m59.8s (shape; varies)

Encoding functions

All encoding functions stringify value with %v first and take no extra arguments.

b64encode

b64encode(value) → string

Base64-encodes with standard encoding (= padding).

Examples

${"hello" | b64encode}               → aGVsbG8=
${"hello" | b64encode | b64decode}   → hello

b64decode

b64decode(value) → string

Base64-decodes standard encoding. Errors b64decode: invalid base64 on bad input.

Examples

${"aGVsbG8=" | b64decode}   → hello
${"not base64!" | b64decode} → error: b64decode: invalid base64: illegal base64 data at input byte 3

sha256

sha256(value) → string

SHA-256 digest as a lowercase 64-char hex string.

Examples

${"hello" | sha256}
    → 2cf24dba5fb0a30e26e83b2ac5b9e29e1b161e5c1fa7425e73043362938b9824