kind: CrewTemplate

What it is

A CrewTemplate is a deploy-only reference kind. The manifest entry instantiates an existing template (creating a new crew + its agents from the template’s blueprint) but cannot author the template itself. Template authoring belongs to the seeded built-in catalog under internal/database or to direct workspace inserts into the crew_templates table — both outside the manifest pipeline. In other words: a CrewTemplate document is the YAML equivalent of clicking “Deploy” on a card in the templates UI.

One-shot semantics — there is no update flow

The backend endpoint behind this kind is:

POST /api/v1/crew-templates/{slug}/deploy

It writes the crew + all agents in a single transaction and rejects re-deploying onto an existing crew (HTTP 409, errCrewSlugConflict). There is no PATCH /deploy, no DELETE /deploy, and no diff-and-reapply path. Once a crew exists under the crew_slug_override slug, this kind has nothing left to do. As a consequence the planner emits only two actions:

Situation	Plan action	What happens
Source template exists, override slug free, `deploy: true`	`Create`	POST `/deploy` with the body below
Override slug already names a crew	`Unchanged`	No HTTP traffic
`deploy: false` (any state)	`Unchanged`	No HTTP traffic, warning in description
Source template missing	Plan returns error	Apply aborts before any mutation

Idempotency is by slug alone. The crews table has no template_slug provenance column, so a pre-existing crew whose slug happens to equal crew_slug_override is treated as “already deployed” — even if it was actually created by hand via kind: Crew. By design: the server would 409 on the deploy POST anyway, and the manifest’s job is to converge to “a crew with this slug exists”, not to enforce who created it.

deploy: false is inert. Setting deploy: false does not trigger an “undeploy”. There is no inverse endpoint. To remove a crew that came from a template, delete it via kind: Crew (or crewship crew delete <slug>). The CrewTemplate planner records intent and surfaces a warning in dry-run output so the no-op is visible.

YAML schema

apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata:
  name: Engineering team           # required — sent to the deploy handler as `crew_name`
  slug: engineering-team           # required — names the SOURCE template (must exist in /api/v1/crew-templates)
spec:
  deploy: true                     # true (default) = ensure crew exists; false = no-op
  crew_slug_override: my-eng-team  # REQUIRED — the slug the resulting crew should carry (workspace-unique)
  inputs:                          # optional — forwarded verbatim to the deploy endpoint (forward compat)
    devcontainer_image: node:20
    region: eu-west-1

Field reference

Field	Required	Type	Notes
`apiVersion`	yes	string	Always `crewship/v1`.
`kind`	yes	string	Always `CrewTemplate`.
`metadata.name`	yes	string	Human label. Sent to the deploy handler as `crew_name` — the server 400s on empty.
`metadata.slug`	yes	string	Slug of the SOURCE template. Must match a row in `GET /api/v1/crew-templates`. Existence is checked at Plan time, not Validate.
`metadata.description`	no	string	Informational; not forwarded.
`spec.deploy`	no	bool	Defaults to false in Go (`bool` zero value). Author YAML should set it explicitly. `true` = deploy if missing, `false` = no-op.
`spec.crew_slug_override`	yes	string (kebab-case)	The slug the new crew will carry. One template can deploy many crews, so this is what distinguishes them. Validated as `^[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?$` at Validate time; uniqueness is enforced server-side at Apply.
`spec.inputs`	no	map[string]any	Forwarded verbatim to the deploy endpoint. The current server ignores unknown keys via `readJSON`’s tolerant decoding, so future template parameters can land without a manifest schema bump.

Examples

Minimal example — deploy a built-in template

apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata:
  name: Eng Team A
  slug: engineering-team        # built-in template slug
spec:
  deploy: true
  crew_slug_override: eng-team-a

Deploy the same template twice under different override slugs

A single template can back many crews — crew_slug_override distinguishes them:

---
apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata: { name: Eng Team A, slug: engineering-team }
spec:
  deploy: true
  crew_slug_override: eng-team-a
---
apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata: { name: Eng Team B, slug: engineering-team }
spec:
  deploy: true
  crew_slug_override: eng-team-b

After the first apply, both crews eng-team-a and eng-team-b exist. Re-applying the same bundle is a pure Unchanged plan (no HTTP traffic to the deploy endpoint).

Deploy with inputs (forward-compatible)

apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata:
  name: Data Platform
  slug: data-team
spec:
  deploy: true
  crew_slug_override: data-platform-eu
  inputs:
    devcontainer_image: python:3.12
    region: eu-west-1
    issue_prefix: DP

The inputs map is currently ignored server-side; future versions of the deploy handler may consume specific keys. Manifest authors can include them today without breaking compatibility.

`deploy: false` — pin without re-applying

apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata: { name: Eng Team A, slug: engineering-team }
spec:
  deploy: false
  crew_slug_override: eng-team-a

The planner emits Unchanged with a warning. Useful for keeping a CrewTemplate document in a versioned bundle for documentation purposes while temporarily disabling automatic deploys.

CLI reference

The crew-template surface has a dedicated CLI under crewship template … (no hyphen — registered as templateCmd in cmd/crewship/cmd_template.go); manifest-level apply does not add new subcommands beyond the global apply / export.

Command	One-liner
`crewship template list`	List the workspace’s templates (built-in + workspace-authored).
`crewship template get <slug>`	Show a single template’s agent list.
`crewship template deploy <slug> --name <name>`	Imperative deploy (equivalent to applying one `CrewTemplate` doc).
`crewship apply --file <file>`	Declarative apply — deploys every `CrewTemplate` doc whose override slug isn’t yet realised.
`crewship export workspace`	Emits `CrewTemplate` docs for crews whose slug heuristically matches a template (see “Round-trip via export”).

REST endpoint mapping

Manifest field	HTTP verb + path	Request body
`spec.deploy: true`, override slug free	`POST /api/v1/crew-templates/{metadata.slug}/deploy`	`{crew_name, crew_slug, inputs?}`
`spec.deploy: true`, override slug taken	—	No request issued; plan is `Unchanged`
`spec.deploy: false` (any state)	—	No request issued; plan is `Unchanged` (with warning)
Source template existence check	`GET /api/v1/crew-templates`	—
Override slug existence check	`GET /api/v1/crews`	—
Export	`GET /api/v1/crew-templates` + `GET /api/v1/crews`	Heuristic match (see below)

POST body shape

The deploy handler (internal/api/crew_templates.go) reads two fields and tolerates extras:

{
  "crew_name": "Engineering team",
  "crew_slug": "my-eng-team",
  "inputs": { "devcontainer_image": "node:20" }
}

crew_name → metadata.name. Server 400s on empty.
crew_slug → spec.crew_slug_override. Server slugifies + validates; collision returns 409.
inputs → forwarded but currently unused. Forward compatibility hook.

DB columns touched (informational)

The deploy handler writes one row to crews (id, workspace_id, name, slug, icon, color, timestamps) and N rows to agents (one per template agent, with agent_slug = template_agent.slug + "-" + crew_slug). It does not record provenance — there is no crews.template_slug column.

Validation rules

Validate (offline, no HTTP) enforces:

apiVersion must be empty or crewship/v1.
kind must be empty or CrewTemplate.
metadata.name is non-empty (sent as crew_name).
metadata.slug is non-empty (source template slug; existence is checked at Plan time).
spec.crew_slug_override is non-empty.
spec.crew_slug_override matches ^[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?$ (kebab-case, no leading/trailing hyphen, no underscores, no uppercase).

Source-template catalog membership (metadata.slug actually exists in GET /api/v1/crew-templates) is not checked at validate time — WorkspaceContext does not carry remote templates. The check is deferred to Plan, where the live HTTP client is available, and surfaces as a transparent “source template not found” error in dry-run output.

Apply behavior

Default (`ApplyUpsert`)

Plan decision table:

`spec.deploy`	Override slug occupied?	Source template present?	Action	Notes
`true`	no	yes	`Create`	POST `/deploy`
`true`	yes	yes	`Unchanged`	No HTTP traffic
`true`	—	no	Plan error	Apply aborts before any mutation
`false`	no	yes	`Unchanged`	Warning: “deploy=false — no action”
`false`	yes	yes	`Unchanged`	Warning: “cannot undeploy”

`ApplyStrict`

Strict mode adds no extra constraints for this kind. A crew already occupying the override slug is not a strict-mode error — it is the expected Unchanged outcome. Strict mode only fires for kinds whose backend supports re-creation; deploy is one-shot, so strict semantics collapse onto upsert semantics.

`ApplyReplace`

Replace mode is also a no-op for the deploy itself: there is no DELETE endpoint at /api/v1/crew-templates/{slug}/deploy, so even “destructively recreate” cannot undeploy the existing crew. To remove a crew before re-deploying, declare a kind: Crew document with the same slug and delete it via that kind’s Replace semantics, or use crewship crew delete <slug> first. When the backend grows an inverse deploy verb this kind will start emitting Delete + Create pairs in Replace mode without any YAML schema change.

Round-trip via export

Provenance gap

The crews schema has no template_slug column today. The deploy handler writes the crew row without recording the source template. There is therefore no authoritative way to round-trip a deployed crew back into a kind: CrewTemplate document. ExportCrewTemplates makes a best-effort heuristic match: a crew whose slug exactly equals a known template’s slug is reported as a CrewTemplate deployment with crew_slug_override = crew.slug. Crews whose slugs diverge from any template slug — the common case, since operators usually rename — are not exported as CrewTemplate; they round-trip via kind: Crew instead.

Crew slug	Matching template?	Exported as
`engineering-team`	yes (built-in)	`kind: CrewTemplate`
`my-custom-crew`	no	`kind: Crew` (other agent)
`eng-team-a`	no	`kind: Crew` (other agent)

This means an export → wipe → re-apply cycle re-creates renamed crews as raw Crew documents, not template deployments — losing the “deployed from X” semantic but preserving the actual state of the world. When/if the server grows a template_slug column on crews, the heuristic in ExportCrewTemplates switches to an exact provenance check; the public Export* signature stays the same.

Emitted document shape

For each match, the export produces:

apiVersion: crewship/v1
kind: CrewTemplate
metadata:
  name: <template.name>           # from the catalog row
  slug: <template.slug>
spec:
  deploy: true
  crew_slug_override: <crew.slug> # equals metadata.slug for heuristic matches
  # inputs intentionally omitted — the deploy body is not persisted server-side

Re-applying an exported CrewTemplate doc is a pure Unchanged plan (the crew is already there).

Get Started

Guides

Security

Configuration

Manifest Reference

Crew template

kind: CrewTemplate

What it is

One-shot semantics — there is no update flow

YAML schema

Field reference

Examples

Minimal example — deploy a built-in template

Deploy the same template twice under different override slugs

Deploy with inputs (forward-compatible)

`deploy: false` — pin without re-applying

CLI reference

REST endpoint mapping

POST body shape

DB columns touched (informational)

Validation rules

Apply behavior

Default (`ApplyUpsert`)

`ApplyStrict`

`ApplyReplace`

Round-trip via export

Provenance gap

Emitted document shape

See also

​kind: CrewTemplate

​What it is

​One-shot semantics — there is no update flow

​YAML schema

​Field reference

​Examples

​Minimal example — deploy a built-in template

​Deploy the same template twice under different override slugs

​Deploy with inputs (forward-compatible)

​deploy: false — pin without re-applying

​CLI reference

​REST endpoint mapping

​POST body shape

​DB columns touched (informational)

​Validation rules

​Apply behavior

​Default (ApplyUpsert)

​ApplyStrict

​ApplyReplace

​Round-trip via export

​Provenance gap

​Emitted document shape

​See also

kind: CrewTemplate

What it is

One-shot semantics — there is no update flow

YAML schema

Field reference

Examples

Minimal example — deploy a built-in template

Deploy the same template twice under different override slugs

Deploy with inputs (forward-compatible)

`deploy: false` — pin without re-applying

CLI reference

REST endpoint mapping

POST body shape

DB columns touched (informational)

Validation rules

Apply behavior

Default (`ApplyUpsert`)

`ApplyStrict`

`ApplyReplace`

Round-trip via export

Provenance gap

Emitted document shape

See also