pillar data in orchestration sls files are not resolved - salt-stack

Question

I'm using Salt 2018.3.2 with following pillar data in /srv/pillar/mypillar.sls
#!yaml
mypillar:
some_key: some_value
and try to use it in the following state file /srv/salt/orch/mypillar.sls
write-pillar-file:
file.managed:
- name: /tmp/mypillar.txt
- contents_pillar: mypillar
It works fine if called as a state:
$ salt 'localhost' state.apply orch.mypillar
Yet does not work if called as orchestrate runner:
$ salt-run state.orchestrate orch.mypillar
[INFO ] Loading fresh modules for state activity
[INFO ] Fetching file from saltenv 'base', ** done ** 'orch/mypillar.sls'
[INFO ] Running state [/tmp/mypillar.txt] at time 18:32:03.120348
[INFO ] Executing state file.managed for [/tmp/mypillar.txt]
[ERROR ] Pillar mypillar does not exist
[INFO ] Completed state [/tmp/mypillar.txt] at time 18:32:03.122809 (duration_in_ms=2.461)
It works if I pass the pillar via commandline, but I want to access the pillar from the filesystem. Shouldn't this be possible?
Any advice appreciated!

Answer 1

I posted the same question on github and got the advice that pillar information is tied to minions, which means that salt-run has no access to pillar info as it runs without minion context.
A workaround is to explicitly query the pillar information like this (in my example I've used 'localhost' as minion ID of my salt master):
{% set pillardata = salt.saltutil.runner('pillar.show_pillar', kwarg={'minion': 'localhost'}) %}
write-pillar-file:
file.managed:
- name: /tmp/mypillar.txt
- contents:
- {{ pillardata['mypillar']['some_key'] }}