Date strings interpreted as timestamp

[thegoodlittlescript]

Describe the bug

Date strings are interpreted as timestamps. This behavior doesn't seem to be avoidable.

To Reproduce

Make a template that is supposed to substitute a date string. For example ./example/file.txt:

The date is: {{ .THEDATE }}

Run boilerplate:

boilerplate --version
# boilerplate version v0.14.0
boilerplate --template-url ./example --output-folder ./output --var THEDATE="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"

Then check the output/file.txt. It will have content like:

The date is: 2026-03-26 00:00:00 +0000 UTC

I tried declaring the variable as a string in boilerplate.yml like:

variables:
  - name: THEDATE
    type: string

That produced an error:

boilerplate --template-url ./example --output-folder ./output --var THEDATE="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
# [boilerplate] 2026/03/26 02:11:29 Loading boilerplate config from example/boilerplate.yml
# [boilerplate] 2026/03/26 02:11:29 Loading boilerplate config from example/boilerplate.yml
# ERROR: Value '2026-03-26 00:00:00 +0000 UTC' is not a valid value for variable 'THEDATE' with type 'string'

Expected behavior

I expect the output content to be like:

The date is: 2026-03-26

I think this should be the default behavior (simply assume everything is a string). Additionally if the variable is specifically declared as a string then it should be treated as a string.

Nice to have

• Terminal output
• Screenshots

Additional context