# Templates and the Compendium

> Start from a prepared blueprint, and the three scopes a template can come from.

The **Compendium** is the template library. A template is a complete blueprint,
including its diagram, strata and prose, that you copy and edit.

## Three scopes

What you see in the Compendium comes from three places:

> [!FIELDS]
>
> > [!FIELD Personal|visible only to you|yours]
> >
> > Anything you captured for your own reuse.
>
> > [!FIELD Organisation or team|shared|your workspaces]
> >
> > Templates shared into an org or team you belong to. Everyone in the
> > workspace starts from the same structure.
>
> > [!FIELD Blueprintr defaults|shipped|everyone]
> >
> > Starting points that come with the product.

## Using one

Pick a template and create from it. You get a **private draft**: a blueprint
draft filed into your own portfolios, or for a diagram template, a private
vellum in your Drafts portfolio. The original is untouched either way.

Creating from a template never publishes anything, however public the template
was.

## Making one

Any blueprint you can edit can become a template from its admin menu, and so
can a standalone Vellum diagram, which gives a diagram-only starting point
rather than a whole blueprint.

Sharing it beyond yourself depends on the permissions your role gives you.

> [!NOTE]
> Through the [MCP server](/foliums/blueprintr-user-guide/developers/mcp-server),
> `create_template_from_blueprint` and `create_template_from_vellum` always
> produce a **personal** template. An agent can capture a template for you; it
> cannot publish one to your organisation.

## A template is a snapshot

Editing the source blueprint afterwards does not change the template, and
editing a copy does not change the source. `get_template` reports what a
snapshot contains before you commit to it.