Templates are written inTerraform and define theunderlying infrastructure that all Coder workspaces run on.

The "Starter Templates" page within the Coder dashboard.

Learn the concepts

While templates are written in standard Terraform, it's important to learn theCoder-specific concepts behind templates. The best way to learn the concepts isbycreating a basic template from scratch.If you are unfamiliar with Terraform, seeHashicorp's Tutorials forcommon cloud providers.

Starter templates

After learning the basics, use starter templates to import a template withsensible defaults for popular platforms (e.g. AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, etc).Docs:Create a template from a starter template.

Extending templates

It's often necessary to extend the template to make it generally useful to endusers. Common modifications are:

• Your image(s) (e.g. a Docker image with languages and tools installed). Docs:Image management.
• Additional parameters (e.g. disk size, instance type, or region). Docs:Template parameters.
• Additional IDEs (e.g. JetBrains) or features (e.g. dotfiles, RDP). Docs:Adding IDEs and features.

Learn more about the various ways you canextend your templates.

Best Practices

We recommend starting with a universal template that can be used for basictasks. As your Coder deployment grows, you can create more templates to meet theneeds of different teams.

• Image management: Learn how tocreate and publish images for use within Coder workspaces & templates.
• Dev Container support: Enabledev containers to allow teams to bring their own tools into Coder workspaces.
• Early Access Dev Containers: Try ournew direct devcontainers integration (distinct from Envbuilder-basedapproach).
• Template hardening:Configure your template to prevent certain resources from being destroyed(e.g. user disks).
• Manage templates with Ci/Cd pipelines:Learn how to source control your templates and use GitOps to ensure templatechanges are reviewed and tested.
• Permissions and Policies: Control who may accessand modify your template.