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Templates are role-specific starting points for agents. They live in templates/ and get seeded into the gateway’s local git repo as template/<name> branches on first boot.

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Template files

Key scripts in skills/hq/scripts/:

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How provisioning works

When you create an agent, HQ forks the selected template branch into the agent’s personal branch, then patches identity fields (slug, name, emoji, channel).

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Model resolution at provision time

The model field in agent.json is optional. At provision time, add-agent.sh resolves the agent’s model using this cascade:
  1. CLI argument — if the provision command payload includes model, use it
  2. Template’s agent.json — if the template specifies a model, use it
  3. Gateway default — the workspace default from Settings → Connections
  4. First connected model — detected from openclaw models status
After provisioning, you can change the model at any time from the agent detail page → Model section. Changes take effect on the next session without a gateway restart.
To create a custom template, copy templates/default/ to templates/your-role/, edit the identity files, add role-specific skills, and rebuild the templates index. See Agents → Writing a new template for the full walkthrough.