How does one pass positional arguments to mine function aliases? - salt-stack

Question

Using salt 2014.7.0, I can add the following to a minion configuration:
mine_functions:
cmd.run: [echo hello]
And then, on the salt master, I can see my 'test' minion retrieving "hello" from the mine:
salt 'test' mine.update
salt 'test' mine.get 'test' cmd.run
test:
----------
test:
hello
This all works perfectly well. However, I would like to use a mine function alias instead of the cmd.run handle. The documentation is not clear on how to do this, and nothing I've tried so far will work. The following attempts have failed:
Passing the arguments through in the mine_function:
mine_functions:
say_hello:
mine_function:
cmd.run: [echo hello]
Passing the arguments through as the "name" field:
mine_functions:
say_hello:
mine_function: cmd.run
name: echo hello
Passing the argments through as an "args" list:
mine_functions:
say_hello:
mine_function: cmd.run
args: [echo hello]
But none of these result in the desired outcome, accessing "hello" through the say_hello alias, i.e.:
salt 'test' mine.update
salt 'test' mine.get 'test' say_hello
test:
----------
test:
hello
What is the correct way to pass arguments to mine functions when using mine function aliases?

Answer 1

Found a workable solution!
The trick is to use a list as the value for the mine function alias, with the mine_function key as the first value, like so:
mine_functions:
say_hello:
- mine_function: cmd.run
- echo hello
This results in the desired output:
salt 'test' mine.update
salt 'test' mine.get 'test' say_hello
test:
----------
test:
hello

Answer 2

I believe the actual solution to this is:
mine_functions:
say_hello:
- mine_function: cmd.run
- cmd: echo test
The key is specifying cmd: echo test rather than name: echo test.
Here's why:
mine_functions execute salt modules, not salt states (per this documentation). This is the same as what happens when you run salt <target> <module>.<method> [args] on the command-line. Notably, command modules don't necessarily follow the state convention of having name as the first parameter.
If you take a look at the documentation for the salt.modules.cmdmod module (which is used by referencing cmd.run, not cmdmod.run, for some reason), you'll note that its first parameter is named cmd rather than name. Using that as the key instead does what you need it to do.