# Templates {#templates}

In projects with an established architecture, developers might want to bootstrap
new components or features that are consistent with the project. With `tuist
scaffold` you can generate files from a template. You can define your own
templates or use the ones that are vendored with Tuist. These are some scenarios
where scaffolding might be useful:

- Create a new feature that follows a given architecture: `tuist scaffold viper
  --name MyFeature`.
- Create new projects: `tuist scaffold feature-project --name Home`

> [!NOTE]
> **Non-opinionated**
>
> Tuist is not opinionated about the content of your templates, and what you use
> them for. They are only required to be in a specific directory.


## Defining a template {#defining-a-template}

To define templates, you can run
<LocalizedLink href="/guides/features/projects/editing">`tuist edit`</LocalizedLink> and then create a directory called `name_of_template`
under `Tuist/Templates` that represents your template. Templates need a manifest
file, `name_of_template.swift` that describes the template. So if you are
creating a template called `framework`, you should create a new directory
`framework` at `Tuist/Templates` with a manifest file called `framework.swift`
that could look like this:


```swift
import ProjectDescription

let nameAttribute: Template.Attribute = .required("name")

let template = Template(
    description: "Custom template",
    attributes: [
        nameAttribute,
        .optional("platform", default: "ios"),
    ],
    items: [
        .string(
            path: "Project.swift",
            contents: "My template contents of name \(nameAttribute)"
        ),
        .file(
            path: "generated/Up.swift",
            templatePath: "generate.stencil"
        ),
        .directory(
            path: "destinationFolder",
            sourcePath: "sourceFolder"
        ),
    ]
)
```

## Using a template {#using-a-template}

After defining the template, we can use it from the `scaffold` command:

```bash
tuist scaffold name_of_template --name Name --platform macos
```

> [!NOTE]
> Since platform is an optional argument, we can also call the command without the
> `--platform macos` argument.


If `.string` and `.files` don't provide enough flexibility, you can leverage the
[Stencil](https://stencil.fuller.li/en/latest/) templating language via the
`.file` case. Besides that, you can also use additional filters defined here.

Using string interpolation, `\(nameAttribute)` above would resolve to `{{ name
}}`. If you'd like to use Stencil filters in the template definition, you can
use that interpolation manually and add any filters you like. For example, you
might use `{ { name | lowercase } }` instead of `\(nameAttribute)` to get the
lowercased value of the name attribute.

You can also use `.directory` which gives the possibility to copy entire folders
to a given path.

> [!TIP]
> **Project Description Helpers**
>
> Templates support the use of
> <LocalizedLink href="/guides/features/projects/code-sharing">project description helpers</LocalizedLink> to reuse code across templates.