Templates

#Purpose

A template is a reusable, pre-configured starting point for creating an agent, a task, or a flow.

The value shows up the second time you need something similar — and every time after that. Someone who knows how the work should be done packages the setup once. From then on, whoever needs that agent, task, or flow starts from a ready-made blueprint and fills in a few guided details, instead of making every configuration decision over again. The results are consistent by default, and they arrive in a fraction of the time.

Templates work in the other direction too: a setup that already runs well can be captured as a template and reused across the organization, so proven work becomes the standard rather than something each person rediscovers.

Opal has one template type for each thing you can standardize — agents, tasks, and flows — and all three follow the same blueprint model. Learn one and the other two will feel familiar.

This page is the map: it introduces each template type, says which page covers it, and tells you where to start.

#In This Section

• Agent Templates — Reusable blueprints for agents. An agent template packages a prompt with guided placeholders, the model that powers it, and capabilities such as skills, connectors, tool definitions, widgets, and guardrails. Agent Templates
• Task Templates — Reusable blueprints for tasks. A task template packages the instructions describing the work, a default agent, reviewers, a recommended trigger, and attached resources such as knowledge, skills, connectors, tools, and guardrails. Task Templates
• Flow Templates — Reusable blueprints for flows. A flow template packages a whole multi-step process: the step sequence, the instructions on each step, the assignments and reviewers, the attached resources, and the flow-level context. Flow Templates

#Key Concepts

Three template types, one blueprint model. Each type captures the same elements as the thing it creates, so a working setup can be turned into a blueprint without redesigning it.

Placeholders mark what changes. The author writes {{ placeholders }} into the fields that differ from one item to the next — a client name, an account, a reporting period — and whoever creates the agent, task, or flow fills them in. Everything outside the placeholders stays the same every time, which is what makes the results consistent.

Authors choose what stays private. Sensitive detail can be protected so it stays hidden while the template remains usable: the prompt and language model parameters in an agent template; the task instructions and agent reviewer instructions in a task template; and the flow context, step instructions, and agent reviewer instructions in a flow template. Instructions written for a human reviewer are the exception — they are never templated or protected, so nobody is asked to review work without being able to read the brief.

Fallback notes prevent a dead end. A template can include agents and resources not everyone has access to. For each one, the author can write a note explaining what to do or request instead, shown to anyone who cannot see it — at the moment they need it, rather than as an unexplained gap in the setup.

Everything created from a template stays linked to it — and never changes underneath you. When a template is updated, the agents, tasks, and flows created from it do not change automatically. Each one can be synced with the template's latest updates when its owner is ready, so improvements spread without disrupting work in progress.

Templates are governed like other resources. They carry Opal's standard governance controls: permissions and sharing, draft-and-publish version control with version history, an optional publishing workflow, and an activity log.

Templates can travel beyond your organization. Agent templates, task templates, and flow templates are among the resource types that can be listed on the Marketplace, so a proven blueprint can be shared with — or adopted from — other organizations, for a price or for free. See Marketplace.

Short definitions of the terms used here are in one place: Glossary.

#Where to Start

Start with Agent Templates. It is the shortest route into the blueprint model — placeholders, protected fields, fallback notes, and staying linked to the template — applied to a single resource. Once that model is clear, the other two pages mostly show it applied to bigger units of work.

From there, go where your goal takes you:

• To standardize a recurring unit of work, such as a weekly check per client or per region — Task Templates.
• To standardize a multi-step process with review gates, such as onboarding a new customer — Flow Templates.

If the underlying concepts are new to you, read them before the template page that builds on them: Agents, Tasks, and Flows. For the wider picture, Building Agents covers the building blocks a template packages, and Getting Work Done covers the spaces, threads, tasks, and flows the work runs in.