Template
Definition
A reusable page-type composition — which Component Contracts or Elements go where for a kind of page — rendered inside a Layout
A project-detail page, a document page, a FAQ page. The Template offers slots; a slot kind is a category of those positions. The Agentic DS draft calls the same thing an instance — a particular arrangement of patterns — and gives it no schema of its own; this glossary keeps Template.
A page type, not a page: the arrangement a kind of page shares. The word is overloaded enough to need three avoids.
Avoid: "template" for a starter repository (that is a Starter Kit); for an AEM Sightly/HTL file (that is the file's own name); or for a content-authoring starting point in the garden (that is an authoring template, a different thing).
Template and instance
The Agentic DS draft's Patterns page (2026-09-24) stops the governed hierarchy at patterns: "Full page templates and campaigns are treated as instances — particular arrangements of patterns — not a fifth governed artifact type." Read instance there as Template here. The word stays Template because the migration work already builds pages under that name — a FAQ page rebuilt from its component adapters — and because instance already means a placed copy of a Figma component. That second sense is the one to keep it free for.
The boundary to hold: a FAQ page is a Template, and a FAQ section — heading, accordion, optional call to action — is a Pattern. A Template arranges patterns and contracts; it is not itself a rule the Core governs.