---
# This title is used for search results
title: Custom Templates for eos_designs
---
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# Custom Templates for eos_designs

With Custom Templates for the `eos_designs` role, the user can create additional structured configuration variables that would otherwise not be created by the built-in templates.
These additional variables will then be available for use by other AVD roles.

For example, the user may require additional structured configuration variables to render a custom template the user has created for the `eos_cli_config_gen` role.

## Create a Custom Template

Custom templates should be written in Jinja2.

For details on how to create Jinja2 templates, see [Templating Jinja2](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/playbook_guide/playbooks_templating.html#templating-jinja2).

For example:

```jinja2
_structured_configuration_variable_name: structured_configuration_variable_value {{ some_variable }}
```

At runtime, `eos_designs` searches for custom templates in several locations; therefore, custom templates should be saved in one of these locations:

```text
<path to users AVD implementation>/playbooks/templates/templates/<template name>
<path to users AVD implementation>/playbooks/templates/<template name>
<path to users AVD implementation>/playbooks/<template name>
```

The "templates" folders do not exist by default, so they will need to be created if the user chooses that location.

### Variable Validation

As with any AVD variable, additional structured configuration variables will be subject to validation against the schema. Because they are custom variables, additional structured configuration variables will not be included in the existing schema and will produce warning messages. Custom variables should start with an underscore if you would like to bypass validation.

## Adding the Custom Template to group vars

For the custom template to be automatically discovered and rendered by `eos_designs`, a variable that references the template should be added to the inventory group vars.

The format of the variable should be as follows:

```yaml
eos_designs_custom_templates:
  - template: custom_template.j2
    options:
      list_merge: prepend
      strip_empty_keys: false
```

For more details, see [Custom Templates](../role-configuration.md#custom-templates).

## Adding the Custom Template to the `eos-designs` Role

Custom templates are rendered automatically when the `eos_designs_custom_templates` variable is set. The custom templates are always rendered *after* the builtin `eos_designs` features, so any output of `eos_designs` can be accessed and overridden.
