---
title: "Get the template schema"
method: GET
path: "/templates/schema"
tags: ["Templates"]
---

# Get the template schema

`GET /templates/schema`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1`
- URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1/templates/schema`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

The JSON Schema for a `mandala/v1` template document — the declarative form a template is written in. Like every route here it needs an API key, so an editor or a `$ref` resolver pointed at this URL with no `Authorization` header gets a `401`. Fetch it with a key — `client.templates.schema()`, or `curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $MANDALA_API_KEY"` — save it to a file, and point your editor at that local copy for completion and validation while you write one.

The document describes what a template IS: its ref (`namespace/name@version`), the image family it resolves to, what it is layered onto, and the shape a computer gets when the create names no numbers. It describes how one is BUILT as well: `spec.build` is applied to the parent named by `spec.from` — apt installs, shell steps, files and directories, in the order written — and `spec.env` is baked into the image as a profile script, and `spec.secrets` names secrets a build step may read — by id, never by value. And it can give the computers created from it a default browser proxy, `spec.browser_proxy` — `{server, bypass}` under the rules of the create field of that name, which a create may override or clear with `null`. What it still does NOT describe is a build from nothing (every document layers over a parent; a base is built by a script outside this format) or lifecycle hooks, because nothing runs them: a field arrives here only once something executes it, which is why adding one is not a new `apiVersion` and a document written today keeps its meaning.

Requires the `viewer` role or higher.

## Response `200`

The schema, as JSON Schema 2020-12.

- object

## Other responses

- `401`: Platform authentication required or refused: reason is missing, invalid, or revoked, with WWW-Authenticate: Bearer (invalid_token for invalid/revoked).
- `403`: The credential is recognized but its holder lacks the required role or membership, or the holder/account is suspended, or the holder has not verified their email address. An ordinary denial for too low a role may carry no `reason`. The email one carries none either, and its message begins `Verify your email before`: it answers a create, a clone of a computer or a snapshot, a new API key and a new SSH key, and is cleared by verifying the address in the dashboard. `reason: "revoked"` marks authority that is gone: a suspended account or a lost membership (refused as the request arrives, or if it happens while the request is in flight), or a role that was lowered while the request was in flight. The message identifies the refusal; replacing a valid key alone does not restore authority, and sending the same call again does not help.
- `405`: This public path exists but does not accept that method. Allow lists only its public methods, with HEAD for GET and metadata OPTIONS.
- `429`: You are asking faster than your plan allows. `Retry-After` says how many seconds to wait, and every metered response — anything past authentication and the re-check that your credential’s authority still holds — carries `RateLimit-Remaining`, so you do not have to be refused to find out. A `401`, a `403` from that re-check, an `OPTIONS` answer and an unexpected `500` carry none. The budget is spent in proportion to what a call costs rather than per request. What a call costs, in budget units, by kind (each operation’s exact figure is its `x-rate-cost` in the OpenAPI document): 1 to read one thing; 5 for a listing that spans the fleet, and 5 for a call into a running guest such as a screenshot or an exec; 10 for a power change and 10 to move file bytes; 25 for `GET /usage`, `GET /credits`, creating a public URL, and creating, rotating or testing a webhook; 50 to capture a snapshot; 100 to create, clone or restore a computer, and 100 to start an agent run, whose actions are then charged as they happen. The account-wide budget, as what an idle caller may spend at once and what refills each minute: No plan 1200 at once and 1200 a minute; Solo 4800 at once and 4800 a minute; Studio 12000 at once and 12000 a minute; Swarm 21600 at once and 21600 a minute. A single API key gets half of either. A `401` for a missing or unusable credential costs nothing: it is refused before anything is metered. A few refusals at the door cost one unit: a `403` because the role is too low or the route refuses an API key confined to a workspace, a `404` for a path that matches nothing, a `405`, and an `Idempotency-Key` answered from its stored result or still in progress. Everything else is charged in full when it is admitted, before it is carried out, so a refusal after that has spent the whole cost: a `400`, `402` or `409` from the route, a `403` its handler sends (on most routes, a suspended account included), and a model provider’s `401` on an agent run. The budget belongs to the account and is shared across everything on it, and any single API key may spend at most half of it. `RateLimit-Limit` is whichever of those two is binding on the request that carried it — usually the per-key half, and the account-wide figure when other keys have already spent more of it than this one has. All three `RateLimit-*` headers describe the same one, so `limit` minus `remaining` is what has been spent against it. A few `429`s are not about this budget, say so in their message, and can carry no `Retry-After`: a model provider’s rate limit relayed on an agent run. The cap on forks of one snapshot waiting for their secrets sends its own bounded expiry-based `Retry-After` with `reason: "contention"` (see `POST /snapshots/{id}/clone`).
- `500`: The application could not finish this: an unexpected exception, a build that broke, or a storage fault. Application refusals carry the request correlation ID; unexpected internal details are not returned.
- `503`: Something this depends on — a hypervisor, a store, or a host’s capacity — could not answer or take this right now. A read can be retried shortly. A change answered `503` may or may not have happened — a failure after the request was sent is answered the same way, with or without a warning in the message — so read the current state before retrying anything that is not safe to repeat, such as a create or a command. On the collection reads, `allow_partial=1` accepts a knowingly short answer instead.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/revisions/2afbb87fa703?raw)
