4.3. Squad Templates¶

Squad templates are reusable blueprints for a team of agents. A template captures each agent's name, role, system prompt, tool configuration, and model preferences so you can spin up a fully configured squad in one step.

There are two kinds of templates:

Built-in templates ship with the app, are read-only, and are localized.
User templates are created by saving an existing squad, or by importing a JSON file. They support delete, export, and import.

Using templates¶

Open the Squad page and click New Squad to open the template gallery. Built-in templates appear first, followed by your own templates. Click a card to preview its agents, then choose Use This Template (jump to review) or Customize (jump to agent configuration).

Saving a squad as a template¶

You can capture any existing squad as a user template:

From the Squad list, use the Save as template action on a squad card.
From a squad's detail page, use the Save as template button in the header.

Provide a name (required), an optional description, and an optional icon. The saved template preserves the full per-agent fidelity — the complete tool configuration (enabled/disabled tools, per-tool permission overrides, custom tool settings) and the complete model preferences (preferred model, minimum context window, tool-calling / vision requirements). Applying the template later restores the wizard exactly as the source squad was configured.

Managing user templates¶

In the template gallery, each user-template card shows inline actions:

Export downloads the template as a JSON file.
Delete removes the template after a confirmation. Built-in templates cannot be deleted.

Use the Import template button beside the category tabs to import a template from a JSON file. Drag and drop a .json file, or click to browse. The payload is validated locally before it is sent; an invalid file shows an inline error. Imported templates are always stored as user templates, and an ID that collides with a built-in is regenerated automatically.

The template JSON schema¶

Templates serialize to JSON with camelCase field names. The shape is shared by the Rust backend (src-tauri/src/squad/templates.rs) and the TypeScript frontend (src/types/squad/templates.ts).

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "id": "user-…",
  "name": "Full-Stack Dev Team",
  "description": "A complete development team…",
  "icon": "🛠️",
  "category": "development",
  "isBuiltin": false,
  "suggestedModels": [],
  "i18nKey": {
    "name": "squad.templates.builtin.fullstackDevTeam.name",
    "description": "squad.templates.builtin.fullstackDevTeam.description"
  },
  "agents": [
    {
      "name": "Planner",
      "role": "Planner",
      "systemPrompt": "You are a technical project planner…",
      "tools": ["read_file", "write_file"],
      "toolConfig": {
        "enabledTools": ["read_file", "write_file"],
        "disabledTools": [],
        "toolPermissionOverrides": {},
        "customToolConfigs": {}
      },
      "modelPreferences": {
        "requiresToolCalling": true,
        "requiresVision": false
      },
      "memoryEnabled": true,
      "icon": "📋",
      "i18nKey": {
        "name": "squad.templates.builtin.fullstackDevTeam.agents.planner.name",
        "role": "squad.templates.builtin.fullstackDevTeam.agents.planner.role",
        "systemPrompt": "squad.templates.builtin.fullstackDevTeam.agents.planner.systemPrompt"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Field reference¶

Field	Type	Notes
`schemaVersion`	number	Schema version. Defaults to `1` for templates that predate the field. Future breaking changes bump this value and add a migration.
`id`	string	Unique identifier. Built-ins use `builtin-…`; user templates use `user-…`.
`name`	string	Display name (English fallback when an `i18nKey` is set).
`description`	string	Short description.
`icon`	string	Emoji or icon identifier.
`category`	string	One of `development`, `content`, `research`, `review`, `custom`.
`isBuiltin`	boolean	`true` for bundled built-ins (non-deletable). Always forced to `false` on import.
`suggestedModels`	string[]	Informational only.
`i18nKey`	object?	Optional per-field translation keys (`name`, `description`).
`agents`	array	Agent definitions (below).

Each agent:

Field	Type	Notes
`name`	string	Agent display name.
`role`	string	Role label. Canonical English roles (`Planner`, `Developer`, `Reviewer`, `Writer`) map to known role types; anything else becomes a custom role.
`systemPrompt`	string	System prompt.
`tools`	string[]	Legacy convenience list of enabled tool names. Mirrors `toolConfig.enabledTools` when the latter is present.
`toolConfig`	object?	Full tool configuration. Takes precedence over `tools` when present.
`modelPreferences`	object?	Full model preferences.
`memoryEnabled`	boolean	Whether memory is enabled for the agent.
`icon`	string	Emoji or icon identifier.
`i18nKey`	object?	Optional per-field translation keys (`name`, `role`, `systemPrompt`).

Older templates that only carry tools (and omit toolConfig / modelPreferences / schemaVersion / i18nKey) still load — the missing fields default safely.

Internationalization of built-in templates¶

Built-in templates declare an i18nKey for each localizable field. At display time the frontend resolves these keys through react-i18next. If a key is missing in the active locale, the bundled English string carried alongside it is used as the fallback. Switching the app language updates built-in template names, roles, descriptions, and prompts in the gallery, preview, and wizard.

Translation strings live under squad.templates.builtin.* in each locale file (src/locales/<locale>/translation.json).

Adding a new built-in template¶

Built-in templates are data, not code. They live as JSON seed files under resources/squad-templates/builtin/*.json and are embedded into the binary at compile time, then read by TemplateStorage::list() at startup. Adding a new built-in template requires no Rust changes:

Create a new resources/squad-templates/builtin/<your-template>.json file following the schema above. Set isBuiltin: true, give it a unique builtin-… id, and a schemaVersion.
(Optional but recommended) Add an i18nKey to each localizable field and add the matching translation keys under squad.templates.builtin.* to every locale file. Provide at least English; other locales fall back to English when a key is missing.
Rebuild the app. The new template appears in the gallery automatically.

Because the files are also bundled as Tauri resources, this lays the groundwork for distributing additional templates through the agent catalog without recompiling.