What kind of variable is used to hold the output of a class or manifest in Puppet?

In Puppet, a local variable is specifically used to hold the output of a class or manifest. Local variables are defined within the scope of a particular class or manifest, allowing them to store temporary data that can be utilized within that scope. This is beneficial for managing data that does not need to persist beyond the execution of that class or manifest, ensuring that the variable holds the output without affecting the overall state or other classes.

The other types of variables do not serve this specific purpose. Global variables would be accessible from anywhere in your Puppet code but are not typically used to directly hold the output from a class or manifest due to their broad scope. Fact variables are pre-defined variables that contain information about the system being managed by Puppet, such as hostnames and operating systems. Node variables, on the other hand, are associated with a specific node in the Puppet environment and typically represent data for that individual node rather than outputs from classes or manifests.