Handle JSON as if it were SQL in a template?

[tf13]

I have a Datasette implementation that shows excerpts from larger documents. I'd like to let users click a link to see the full document if they want to. The catch: I don't store the full document; getting it requires an API call, which yields a pretty substantial JSON object.

I can construct the link just fine with what I do have in the underlying database. But clicking on it would bring users to the raw JSON. I'd like the link to open a Datasette template, retrieve the JSON object from the API and display the right parts of it through the template.

Is there a way to do this just with Datasette (or plugins)? I could imagine a plug-in that retrieves the JSON and treats it more or was like a query result, which would do the trick. Maybe jq can do that?

Or do I need to also have a flask app running, just to handle this retrieving and displaying the full document?

Other solutions welcome!