Pipeline Templates

The Pipeline Templates page lives under Configuration in the sidebar, next to Project Settings. From it you can browse every template across all three tiers (built-in, user, project), create new ones with a structured editor, duplicate built-ins as a starting point, and set a project default — without touching the CLI or editing JSON by hand.

The sidebar's Configuration group with Project Settings and Pipeline Templates visible, the latter open showing the three tier sections.

Opening the editor

Click Pipeline Templates in the sidebar. You get three collapsible tier sections:

Section	Default state	Contains
Project	Open	Templates defined in `.claude/templates/` — committed, shared with the team.
User	Collapsed	Templates defined in `~/.worca/templates/` — available across all your projects.
Built-in	Collapsed	Templates shipped with worca (`feature`, `feature-fast`, `feature-minor`, `bugfix`, `quick-fix`, `refactor`, `investigate`, `test-only`). Read-only — you can duplicate, export, or view them, but not edit them in place.

Each section header shows a count badge. The card for the current project default is marked with a ★ Default badge.

Cards are clickable. Clicking anywhere on a card opens the editor — in edit mode for project and user templates, in read-only View Template mode for built-ins.

The Pipeline Templates list: three collapsible tier sections — Project (open), User (collapsed), Built-in (collapsed) — with the project default marked ★ Default and the ID: <slug> badge row visible on every card.

Template tiers and shadowing

Templates resolve by id — project beats user beats built-in, with no cross-tier merging. If you create a project template with the same id as a built-in (feature, say), the project template replaces the built-in for that project. The list shows all three tiers separately so you can see what exists where; the resolution rule is what matters at run launch.

For the full merge story — how templates interact with project settings, model aliases, and CLI overrides — see Configuration precedence.

Creating a template

Click New template in the list view. You’re asked for a scope (project or user) and an id; the editor then opens on the new template.

Templates have one of two starting points:

From scratch — the new editor opens with empty defaults. Fill in only the keys you want to override; everything else falls through to worca’s code defaults.
From a built-in — click Duplicate on any built-in card and pick a destination scope + id. The copy carries the built-in’s values as a starting point.

The editor

The editor is organized as a top subheader (template-level metadata) and three tabs.

Top subheader

A row of “field pills” carrying the template’s metadata:

Name — the human-readable label shown on cards and in the run launcher.
ID — the slug you reference at launch (--template <id> or worca.default_template). Underscores are allowed. If the id collides with another template in the same tier, an inline yellow warning badge appears next to the field with a tooltip explaining the collision; Save is disabled until you resolve it.
Storage — a read-only badge showing the tier (Project / User / Built-in).
★ Default toggle — flips this template as the project default. Mirrored on the card-level Set as default action.
Description — a longer free-text field that appears below the name on cards and as a tooltip in the launcher.

The editor subheader: Name / ID / Storage field pills with the inline ID-collision warning visible next to the ID field.

Tabs

Tab	What it controls	Maps to
Agents	Per-agent model, max turns, effort, and (Coordinator only) max beads; pipeline-level auto mode and auto cap for adaptive effort escalation. The Model dropdown lists every alias across Project / User / Built-in tiers with a tier section header and a ↗ jump-to-Models link. The Effort field carries an advisory yellow chip when set below the recommended floor for that role.	`worca.agents.*`, `worca.effort`
Pipeline	Per-stage on/off toggles and agent picker; approval gates (plan / PR); CLAUDE.md load mode; retry loops (implement/test, review, plan-review); circuit breaker (enable + max consecutive failures).	`worca.stages`, `worca.claude_md_mode`, `worca.loops`, `worca.circuit_breaker`, `worca.milestones`
Governance	Per-agent allowlists for tools, skills, and subagents.	`worca.governance.dispatch`
Overlays	Read-only view of the prompt overlay files (`agents/*.md`) attached to this template, grouped by stage with sub-tabs for agent prompt and user prompt. Visible only when at least one overlay file is present. Overlays arrive via import, duplicate, or a filesystem drop — the tab surfaces them regardless of origin.	`agents/` directory

The editor only writes the delta — keys you leave blank inherit defaults, keeping templates lean and upgrade-friendly. It runs the same deep-merge simulation the pipeline uses at launch, so malformed config is caught before it hits disk.

Three editor tabs side by side — Agents (model / turns / effort per agent), Pipeline (stage toggles + loops + circuit breaker), Governance (dispatch allowlists).

Editing a template

Click any project or user template card and the editor opens with current values pre-filled. Save writes to the template’s file and stays on the page with a transient “Saved” toast — useful for tuning across multiple tabs in one sitting. Export downloads the template as a bundle.

Read-only built-in templates

Clicking a built-in card opens the editor in View Template mode: every field is read-only, the Save button is replaced by Close, and the only available actions are Duplicate and Export. To customize a built-in, duplicate it to your project or user scope and edit the copy.

The editor in View Template mode for a built-in: subheader pills disabled, no Save button, Close + Duplicate + Export as the only actions.

Duplicating a template

Click Duplicate on any card — or from inside the editor — to copy the template under a new id. You’re asked for a destination scope (project or user) and the new id; the copy is independent of the original. Duplicate is available on every tier, including built-ins (the canonical “customize a built-in” entry point).

You can also duplicate a built-in to the same id in project or user scope — that’s the canonical shadow flow: the built-in keeps existing but is replaced by your copy when worca resolves the id at run launch.

Setting a project default

Either flip the ★ Default toggle inside the editor, or click Set as default on a card. This writes worca.default_template in your project’s .claude/settings.json (as a { tier, id } object — not a bare string), so every run uses that template unless you override with --template at launch.

The toggle is available on Project and Built-in cards alike — built-ins ship with the worca-cc package, so pinning one as your project default is fully portable across collaborators. Only User-tier templates (which live in your ~/.worca/templates/ and never travel with the repo) are excluded.

The ★ Default badge moves to the newly selected card. To clear the default (so runs use raw project settings with no template), use Clear default or remove the worca.default_template key from Settings.

Exporting and importing

Export — click Export on any card (or inside the editor). The format is chosen automatically: .zip when the template has prompt overlay files (agents/*.md), .json for config-only templates. Secrets are redacted in either format, safe to share or commit. Export works on every tier, including built-ins.
Import — click Import in the list view to upload a .json or .zip bundle file. The UI runs a preview pass first and, if any collisions are detected, opens a dialog with two sections so you can decide what to do:
- Template collisions — for each template id that already exists in the target scope, pick Replace (overwrite) or Skip (keep the existing).
- Model alias collisions — for each model alias in the bundle that already exists in the target scope (project or user), pick Rename (zero-padded -NN suffix; the imported template’s config.agents.*.model references are rewritten transactionally), Overwrite (replace the existing definition), or Skip (keep the existing).
Click Import in the dialog footer to commit. The post-import view lists the templates that landed and any overlay files that came in. Imported aliases carry an Imported · <bundle-name> provenance badge on the Models page that drops on the first UI save.

The import dialog after preview detects both kinds of collisions: a yellow "Template collisions" section showing feature-glm-ds → Replace, and a yellow "Model alias collisions" section showing glm-ds → Rename glm-ds-01, with "1 new alias will land cleanly: sonnet" below.

For the full export/import workflow including CLI commands, see Authoring, sharing & importing templates.

In-flight run guards

Deleting a project or user template that is currently used by running pipelines shows a confirmation dialog with the count of in-flight runs. Templates resolve at run start, so existing runs aren’t affected by the delete — the guard just makes the relationship visible before you commit.

Built-in templates can’t be deleted; that action is hidden on built-in cards.

When the worca-cc CLI is missing or too old

The Pipeline Templates page delegates CRUD operations to the worca Python CLI. If the CLI isn’t installed — or is older than the version the UI requires — a degraded-mode banner appears at the top of the page:

Editing is disabled — this UI needs worca-cc X.Y or later.

In degraded mode, Create, Edit, Duplicate, Delete, and Import are disabled across all cards. Export still works, because it’s a read-only operation against the bundles on disk. Install or upgrade worca-cc to restore full editing.