What are Templates?

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Overview

Courier templates define what your notifications say, how they look, and how they behave across channels. Create a template once, then send it through email, SMS, push, chat, or in-app channels. Templates keep message content reusable and easy to update, while supporting variables, branding, routing, failover, and channel-specific content. Courier supports two ways to create and manage templates:

• Template Designer for building and editing templates visually in the Courier app
• Elemental Markup + Templates API for creating, updating, publishing, and managing templates programmatically

Both paths create the same kind of Courier template. Use the Designer when your team wants a visual editing workflow. Use the API when templates need to live in code, move through Git review, or be managed from internal tools.

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Template Designer

Template Designer is Courier’s visual editor for building notifications without writing code. PMs, designers, operators, and developers can collaborate on message content, preview changes, and publish updates from one place. Use Template Designer when you want to:

• Build templates with drag-and-drop content blocks
• Preview email, SMS, push, chat, and in-app content before publishing
• Inject test data to validate variables and conditional content
• Edit channel-specific content side by side
• Track changes with version history

See Design Studio to learn more about building templates visually.

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Elemental Markup + Templates API

Elemental Markup is the JSON format Courier uses to represent template content. It powers templates created in Template Designer and can also be sent through the Templates API to create, update, publish, and manage templates programmatically. See Elemental Markup for the template format. Use Elemental Markup with the Templates API when you want to:

• Manage templates from your codebase
• Generate templates dynamically
• Review template changes through Git
• Test template payloads in CI
• Create or update templates from internal tools
• Keep template management close to your application workflow

Templates managed through the API use the same underlying structure as templates managed in the UI, so your team can choose the workflow that fits how you build.

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Template capabilities

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Dynamic content

Personalize notifications with variables from user profiles, event payloads, tenant data, brand settings, or any data you pass at send time.

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Branding

Apply consistent logos, colors, fonts, and layouts across notifications. Use brands to support white-labeling and multi-tenant messaging.

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Reusable routing

Define routing once and reuse it across templates. Configure primary and fallback channels, provider priorities, and delivery behavior separately from message content.

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Conditional logic

Show, hide, or adapt content based on user data, preferences, account state, or custom business rules.

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Preview and testing

Preview templates with test data before they go live. Validate channel-specific rendering, brand variations, variables, and delivery formatting.

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Version history

Track changes over time, compare versions side by side, and roll back when needed.

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Key Concepts