# Templates

> Design transactional emails visually, then trigger them from code.

Templates separate **design from triggering**: someone designs the receipt once in the visual editor, and your code sends it with three lines — an alias and the variables that change per email. No HTML in your codebase, and design fixes ship without a deploy.

Find the editor in the dashboard under **Transactional → Templates**. Any signed-in account can browse it; creating and sending templates requires a **Pro** or **Business** plan (see [Transactional email](/transactional/overview)).

## Aliases

Every template has an **alias** — a short handle like `order-confirmation` — which is what your code passes as `templateAlias` on the [send call](/transactional/send-api). Aliases are unique per account; if you create a template with a taken alias, Faivelo appends a number (`order-confirmation-2`).

A template can be **paused** from the dashboard. Sends that reference a paused template fail with `409` and nothing goes out — useful when a template is mid-edit and must not be triggered.

## Variables

Write `{{name}}` anywhere in the subject or body and it becomes a variable your code fills at send time:

```json
{ "templateAlias": "order-confirmation", "variables": { "name": "Robin", "total": "$42.00" } }
```

Rendering is **strict**: if the template references a variable the send call didn't provide, the call fails with `422` listing what's missing — nothing is sent. A receipt can't go out with a blank total.

## Repeating sections

For variable-length content — order line items, a list of alerts — mark a block as a **section**. In the send call, feed it an array of rows, and the block renders once per row:

```json
{
  "variables": {
    "items": [
      { "product": "Notebook", "price": "$12.00" },
      { "product": "Pen", "price": "$3.00" }
    ]
  }
}
```

Inside the section block, `{{product}}` and `{{price}}` refer to the current row's values.

## The API-content slot

A template can include an **API-content slot** — a placeholder that your send call fills with its own `html`. The caller's markup renders *inside* the designed template (header, theme, footer intact) instead of replacing it. This is the pattern for emails whose body is generated by your app — a digest, a report — that should still wear your design.

If a template has no slot, any `html` on a template send is simply unused.

## Shared theme

Your account has a shared **theme** — brand color, fonts, logo — that every template inherits by default. Change the theme once and every inheriting template updates together. A template can also **detach** and carry its own values when one email needs to look different.

## Test sends

The editor's **test send** delivers the template to an address you choose through the real production pipeline, with the sample values shown in the preview — a faithful rehearsal, not a simulation. Test sends count against your [monthly sending limit](/sending/limits) like any other delivery.

## Next steps

- [Send a template from code](/transactional/send-api)
- [Get delivery events pushed to your server](/transactional/webhooks)