Thanks.
Template toolkit allows me to set variables inside a template and then access them from the wrapper: http://www.template-toolkit.org/docs/manual/Config.html#section_WRAPPER
Yes, these variables are called META variables. If you're on the IRC channel, you've probably heard me mention them quite a bit recently.
For some reasons TT2 documentation calls out META separately from the behavior of template variables being accessible via the wrapper. http://www.template-toolkit.org/docs/manual/Directives.html#section_WRAPPER "One side-effect of the "inside-out" processing of the WRAPPER configuration item (and also the WRAPPER directive) is that any variables set in the template being wrapped will be visible to the template doing the wrapping, but not the other way around." ... snip .... "It achieves the same effect as defining META items which are then accessed via the template variable (which you are still free to use within WRAPPER templates), but gives you more flexibility in the type and complexity of data that you can define." That said, this solution works for me in both cases: 1. Using META to declare a variable in the template and accessing it via template. inside wrapper. 2. Accessing a (non META) variable declared in the template directly inside the wrapper. So thanks again! I am nitpicking here, but probably we should warn/error out if both layout: and WRAPPER: configuration options are both active together in config.yml