Templating sits between a configuration file and domain-specific language on the Heptagon of Configuration. When should you use templating and when should you move along the Heptagon of Configuration? Templating is the first step in turning configuration as data into configuration as code. Using string manipulation, templating engines can remove duplication and introduce basic control flow into our otherwise static data – all without any understanding of the underlying data. That is, you can use the same templating engine to produce HTML, YAML, SQL, or any other text data. That's what makes it so powerful.