One of my players wants to add an emote to his spell description (using roll20 Pathfinder character sheet if that matters).
But chat commands inside a template (spell, feat, attack, etc) aren't executed, just displayed as text. Is there a way around this? The only thing I've come up with so far is putting in a command button, but I'd like to avoid that.
The problem with that is you are trying to send a GM whisper inside a roll template output that is already a public roll. The only way to turn it into a whisper (separate from the template) would be to get the code for that roll and write a character ability with the whisper and that roll done on separate lines. You can find the shortcut to calling some rolls from the sheet on the wiki page found here:
https://wiki.roll20.net/Pathfinder_Official#PC_Rolls
I don't see traits on that list, so I dragged a trait to the quick macro bar, rolled it, and then put my cursor in chat and hit the up arrow to see what the command is for traits. It looks like your test is the first trait on the list, so it would look something like this (replace Snagshul with the correct character name):
%{Snagshul|repeating_abilities_$0_trait}
/w gm Test
That was made as an ability (macro) on the Attributes & Abilities tab of the character sheet.
If your player wants to do very many of these, or you need them for your style of games, you might consider setting up a chat menu to cut down on the number of token action buttons (or macro bar buttons) that would be needed to call all the custom rolls.