I don't know if direct code would solve any problems of YAML, the problem is you're configuring a system that isn't runnable locally, and by the nature of that,

I don't know if direct code would solve any problems of YAML, the problem is you're configuring a system that isn't runnable locally, and by the nature of that, it doesn't matter if that system is configured in js, ruby, python, brainfuck, html, or yaml, without a validator you're screwed, and if you have a js validator, no reason you can't have a yaml one. I personally think YAML has a lot of bad flaws, for one it doesn't have a schema definition similarly to JSON or XML, so you can't just say "write a yaml that conforms to this schema" and boom, autocomplete, self-documentation, etc. That's about where I landed. "If only we had the ability to run a miniature, totally unscalable, but testable architecture locally, it'd solve all my challenges of administering a system." This is just an indicator that what we have now isn't the best, it's just the one that functions. Kinda like humans, we're not the best biological organisms, we're just the ones that ended up winning.