How do I pass parameters to a salt state file?

If you really want to pass in the data on the command like you can also do it like this:

{{ pillar['name'] }}:
  group.present:
    - gid: {{ pillar['gid'] }}
    - system: True

Then on the command line you can pass in the data like this:

salt 'SaltStack-01' state.sls group pillar='{"name": "awesome", "gid": "123456"}'

You use Pillars to create "dictionaries" that you can reference into State files. I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, but here's an example of what you can do:

1. mkdir /srv/pillar/

2. Create /srv/pillar/groups.sls and paste something like this into it:

   groups:
     first: 1234
     second: 5678
   

   These are names and GIDs of the groups you want to create.

3. Create /srv/pillar/top.sls so you can apply this pillar to your minions. This is very similar to a salt top file, so you can either apply it to all minions ('*') or just the one ('SaltStack-01'):

   base:
     'hc01*':
       - groups
   

   To test that that has worked, you can run salt '*' pillar.items and you should find the groups pillar somewhere in the output.

4. Now, your /srv/salt/group.sls file should look like this:

   {% for group,gid in pillar.get('groups',{}).items() %}
   {{ group }}:
     group.present:
       - gid: {{ gid }}
   {% endfor %}
   

   This is a for loop: for every group and gid in the pillar groups, do the rest. So basically, you can look at it as if the state file is running twice:

   first:
     group.present:
       - gid: 1234
   

   And then:

   second:
     group.present:
       - gid: 5678
   

This was incorporated from this guide.

if you do not want use Pillar
you can do as:

# /srv/salt/params.yaml

name: awesome
gid: 123456

and then:

# /srv/salt/groups.sls

{% import_yaml "params.yaml" as params %}

{{ params['name'] }}:
  group.present:
    - gid: {{ parmas['gid'] }}
    - system: True

more details:doc