Esphome config option to preserve comments

When I run esphome config <CONFIG> the output is all the yaml from all the included yaml files with the exception of comments. All comments are removed from the output.

Q1: Is it possible to preserve comments in the output? If not, is it difficult to add a --perserve-comments switch? I still need the multiple included yaml files in the output. I essentially want an all-in-one yaml file with comments kept.

Q2: Does the config command insert “default values” or otherwise alter the incoming source?

cc: Command Line Interface — ESPHome

The esphome config command simply validates your yaml. What are you using it for?

@zoogara My use case has a main root level yaml file including many individual smaller yaml files. I want to distribute a single yaml file with all the smaller yaml files already included in a new single / all-in-one yaml file. This eliminates the need for any sub-directories or additional yaml files. The new single root yaml file will have everything in it.

When I run esphome config I believe it outputs the contents of the root yaml file with all the child yaml files fully included and displayed as the output. It essentially creates a “all-in-one” self contained yaml output with everything inside it with no need for subdirectories / additional yaml files, right? This is the perfect way to distribute a multi file yaml configuration — as a single generated “all-in-one” self contained yaml file.

esphome config root-level.yaml > dist/all-in-one.yaml

Hmm - ok - you will need to raise a feature request on the ESPHome GitHub page. You will need to make a good case for including that functionality in this ESPHome command, or maybe creating a new one for your use case.