Templates

Templates let admins save a set of field values from an existing document and reuse them as a starting point when creating new documents. When templates exist for a collection, the "New" button opens a picker so the author can choose between a blank document or any saved template.

When templates help

• Recurring content patterns — Weekly newsletters, product pages, or event announcements often share the same field structure. A template pre-fills the boilerplate so authors only change what actually differs each time.
• Onboarding new editors — New team members may not know which fields matter or what values are expected. A well-named template ("Standard product page", "Weekly recap") acts as an in-app guide.
• Consistency without rigidity — Unlike mandatory field defaults, templates are suggestions. An author can accept the template values, override individual fields, or ignore the template and start blank. The schema still validates — templates just reduce blank-page friction.
• Faster time-to-publish — Pre-filling common fields (status, category, layout choices) means fewer decisions before an author can start writing.

Templates vs. alternatives

Creating a template

Open any document in a collection and use the Save as Template option in the editor header actions menu. A dialog appears with three fields:

Clicking Save template captures the current form values for all non-system fields and stores them against the collection.

Using templates

When one or more templates exist for a collection, clicking the New button on the collection list page opens the Create new document dialog instead of navigating directly. The dialog presents:

• Blank document — opens the new document form with all fields empty.
• One button per saved template — opens the new document form pre-filled with that template's field values. Default templates are marked with a "Default" badge.

Selecting a template appends ?templateId=<id> to the new document URL. The document edit page fetches the template and merges its fields map into the empty form, giving the author a head start.

Managing templates

Templates are stored per collection. Use the admin module API to list, update, or delete them programmatically or from custom UI.

Audit log

Every template operation is recorded in the audit log:

Admin module API

The following functions are available on the object returned by createVextroAdminModule.

listTemplatesForCollection

Returns all templates for a given collection, ordered by creation time.

const templates = await convex.query(api.listTemplatesForCollection, {
  collectionSlug: "posts",
});
// Array<AdminTemplate>

Args

getTemplate

Returns a single template by ID, or null if not found.

const template = await convex.query(api.getTemplate, {
  templateId: "abc123",
});
// AdminTemplate | null

Args

createTemplate

Creates a new template for a collection. Returns the new template ID.

const templateId = await convex.mutation(api.createTemplate, {
  name: "Blog post draft",
  description: "Standard layout with a title, body, and tags pre-filled.",
  collectionSlug: "posts",
  fields: {
    status: "draft",
    tags: ["general"],
  },
  isDefault: false,
});

Args

updateTemplate

Patches an existing template. All patch fields are optional.

await convex.mutation(api.updateTemplate, {
  templateId: "abc123",
  patch: {
    name: "Updated name",
    isDefault: true,
  },
});

Args

deleteTemplate

Permanently deletes a template. This does not affect documents already created from it.

await convex.mutation(api.deleteTemplate, {
  templateId: "abc123",
});

Args

AdminTemplate type

type AdminTemplate = {
  _id: string;
  _creationTime: number;
  name: string;
  description?: string;
  collectionSlug: string;
  fields: Record<string, unknown>;
  createdBy: string;   // User ID of the admin who created the template
  createdAt: number;   // Unix timestamp (ms)
  updatedAt: number;   // Unix timestamp (ms)
  isDefault: boolean;
};