So in templates.pp in
class baseclass {
include ...
}
I commented out that baseclass as it was being referenced in nodes.pp
And it started working from the call in nodes.pp:
node 'basenode' {
include baseclass
}
node 'somehost' inherits basenode {
class { 'abc:def':
user => "xxx"
}
}
Now the /var/log/messages shows the proper notify being run and no errors
as well as a printout of the user variable.
Hallelujah!