Added 'silence_compiler' option which will cause all stdout from source build/install to be suppressed (logged to a file, in case you want to see it later). stderr is also logged to file, but if there is an error then stderr is copied to Salt so it comes back with the highstate payload.

nginx/source.sls

   cmd.wait:
     - cwd: {{ nginx_source }}
     - names:
-      - ./configure --conf-path={{ conf_dir }}/nginx.conf
+      - (
+        ./configure --conf-path={{ conf_dir }}/nginx.conf
         --sbin-path={{ sbin_dir }}/nginx
         --user={{ nginx_map.default_user }}
         --group={{ nginx_map.default_group }}
         {%- endfor %}
         && make {{ make_flags }}
         && make install
+        )
+        {#- If they want to silence the compiler output, then save it to file so we can reference it later if needed #}
+        {%- if nginx.get('silence_compiler', true) %}
+        > {{ nginx_source }}/build.out 2> {{ nginx_source }}/build.err;
+        {#- If the build process failed, write stderr to stderr and exit with the error code #}
+        r=$?;
+        if [ x$r != x0 ]; then
+          cat {{ nginx_source }}/build.err 1>&2;  {#- copy err output to stderr #}
+          exit $r;
+        fi;
+        {% endif %}
     - watch:
       - cmd: get-nginx
       {% for name, module in nginx.get('modules', {}).items() -%}