Work with templates

You create and edit Coder templates as Terraform configuration files (.tf) and any supporting files, like a README or configuration files for other services.

Who creates templates?

The Template Admin role (and above) can create templates. End users, like developers, create workspaces from them. Templates can also be managed with git, allowing any developer to propose changes to a template.

You can give different users and groups access to templates with role-based access control.

Creating templates

The template builder is the recommended way to create templates. It guides you through selecting a base infrastructure template, adding modules (IDEs, tools, integrations), and configuring template settings without writing Terraform.

Starter templates for common cloud providers (AWS, Azure) and orchestrators (Kubernetes, Docker) are available as base templates within the builder. You can modify the generated template to use your own images, VPC, cloud credentials, and so on. Coder supports all Terraform resources and properties.

If you prefer to use Coder on the command line, use coder templates init to pull a starter template, then coder templates push to upload it.

Coder starter templates are also available on our GitHub repo.

Community Templates

As well as Coder's starter templates, you can see a list of community templates by our users here.

Editing templates

Our templates are meant to be modified for your use cases. You can edit any template's files directly in the Coder dashboard.

If you'd prefer to use the CLI, use coder templates pull, edit the template files, then coder templates push.

Updating templates

Coder tracks a template's versions, keeping all developer workspaces up-to-date. When you publish a new version, developers are notified to get the latest infrastructure, software, or security patches. Learn more about change management.

Template update policies

Licensed template admins may want workspaces to always remain on the latest version of their parent template. To do so, enable Template Update Policies in the template's general settings. All non-admin users of the template will be forced to update their workspaces before starting them once the setting is applied. Workspaces which leverage autostart or start-on-connect will be automatically updated on the next startup.

Refresh template data

Coder reads Terraform data sources once, when it imports a template version. Every workspace built from that version reuses those stored results.

Refreshing imports the active version's source files again and publishes the result as the new active version. Use it to pick up changes to a data source, or to give an older version the metadata that Dynamic Parameters needs.

To refresh a template's data:

1. Navigate to the template, then select Settings > Parameters.
2. Select Refresh template data, then confirm.

The Template data section on that page shows which version is active and when Coder last imported it.

New workspaces use the refreshed version as soon as the import finishes. Workspaces that are already running stay on their current version until you update them.

Refreshing a template's data requires permission to update the template, which the Template Admin role and above have.

Workspace renaming

Workspace renaming is disabled by default on every template. Enable it per template, once you have confirmed that a rename won't destroy anything.

Terraform exposes the workspace name as data.coder_workspace.me.name. If a template uses that value in an attribute Terraform can't change in place, renaming the workspace makes Terraform destroy the resource and create a new one on the next build. When that resource is the home volume, the developer loses their data.

Other uses of the name are harmless. A Kubernetes label or an environment variable changes without replacing anything. Coder can't tell the two cases apart, so the decision stays with the template admin.

Check whether your template is safe to rename

Search the template for uses of the workspace name:

For each result, ask whether Terraform would replace the resource if that value changed. Attributes such as a volume name, a disk name, or an instance name usually force replacement. Labels, tags, and environment variables usually don't.

If a resource would be replaced, reference an immutable identifier instead, such as data.coder_workspace.me.id. Refer to Resource persistence for the full set of practices.

Enable renaming for a template

1. Go to the template, then select Settings.
2. On the General page, under Operations, select Allow users to rename their workspaces.
3. Select Save.

Developers can then rename a workspace from the workspace's Settings page, or with coder rename.

While the setting is off, the workspace name field is disabled and the API rejects renames.

Delete templates

You can delete a template using both the coder CLI and UI. Only template admins and owners can delete a template, and the template must not have any running workspaces associated to it.

In the UI, navigate to the template you want to delete, and select the dropdown in the right-hand corner of the page to delete the template.

Using the CLI, login to Coder and run the following command to delete a template:

Next steps