The section "SALT PILLAR ON THE COMMAND LINE" references a ftpsync state.
It's unclear where that comes from. Presumably it was created in the previous paragraph, but that didn't mention to create the state in a ftpsync.sls file.

The page fundamentals/states.html has some problems with it. To over-arching to try to submit a fix.
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/fundamentals/states.html
The images on the page do not match what I get in the demo environment.

The last image on the page has a section in the text "update_lftpd_conf" which is nowhere in the state file., both say "succeeded: 2",where as when I run it in the demo system, it says succeeded:1, and the side bar talks about execution order, saying "packages are installed before teh configuration file is updated" when nothing in the state referes to a config file.
It looks like the author tried to simplify the page, but didn't do the images or the side bar.

If you follow the tutorial but choose not to use the Vagrant demo environment, applying the final top.sls results in an error.

salt '*' state.apply

minion1:
    Data failed to compile:
----------
    No matching sls found for 'common' in env 'base'
minion2:
    Data failed to compile:
----------
    No matching sls found for 'common' in env 'base'

Instructions to create the common directory could be added, along with instructions to populate it with something suitable.

I couldn't find the code for the footer over at https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/ anywhere.
It should be updated to 2017. :)

Hi,
https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/config/functions.html does a pkg.install of mysql, but mysql isn't available in the demo (vagrant) boxes (it's mariadb instead I think). Perhaps choose a better pkg/service example.

This document is the first hit when searching for things like getting started with saltstack, but gives some bad advice that will lead new users the wrong way. It presents Pillar as the only way to separate data from code, rather than as a thing to be used only for secrets. According to this very long thread on Slack, Pillar does not scale well enough to be the only source of data, and using things like map files (documented in the newer getting started documentation) is the best practice for most data.

I'm not sure I have good suggestions for how to deal with this document. The only solutions that come to mind are:

• rewrite the sections that mention Pillar to be clearer that it is not expected to be used for all data, and to include reference to other, better mechanisms for storing data
• remove the document from the Internet so that searches land on newer documentation

I gather this problem of searches landing people on out of date advice on Pillar is more widespread than just this document, so it may be that this Issue should be closed and either moved or merged with an umbrella issue somewhere.

The "init.sls" section states:

If you target a directory during a state.apply or in the state Top file, salt looks for an init.sls file in that directory and applies it.

However, so far, it hasn't been explained how to target a directory or what targeting a directory even means, leaving the reader baffled.

The link in top.md sends the user to https://docs.saltstack.com/config/, which is incorrect.

The correct link is: https://docs.saltstack.com/en/getstarted/config/

It is rendered as <a href="/en/../config/">...</a> in my browser

I think I'm being daft, because the link in top.md looks correct to me