How-to
How to use and customize a marketplace template
A template is somebody’s working configuration. Starting from one is faster than a blank Configuration box, mostly because you can read a prompt that already works and see why it is shaped that way.
I built both of the buttons below and they are genuinely easy to mix up, so that is where this page starts rather than ending.
Two buttons that do different things
This trips people up, so it is the first thing to get straight. A template preview has both, and they are not the same action:
| Button | What it creates | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Use Template | A new agent in your account, ready to run. You land on the agent page | You want the thing working now |
| Fork | A private template of your own, copied from the original | You want to change the template itself, or keep a variant to reuse |
Get one running
- Open the Marketplace and browse by category, or search.
- Open a template and read its description and rating before you commit to it.
- Click Use Template. Optionally give it your own name first.
- You land on the new agent. Set it Active and run it with a realistic input.
- Open the run and read the step rows to see what it actually did.
A first run is cheap enough not to think about: a support-ticket-sized worked example comes to $0.0144, a real logged run that also escalated to a human $0.0204, and a run that fails on its first tool call $0.0024. Source: two of those are published in full, no account needed.
Those are pricing-code figures rather than guesses, so a template you are unsure about costs roughly a penny to try properly instead of judging it from its description.
Make it yours
A template gives you a starting prompt, not a finished one. The agent it creates has a Configuration (JSON) box holding its system_prompt — that is the part to edit, because the template author wrote it for their business rather than yours.
- Open the agent and click Edit.
- Change `system_prompt` in the Configuration box to describe your job, your tone and your rules.
- Tick the tools it needs, and connect them under Account → Integrations.
- Run it again on the same input and compare the two runs side by side.
What a fork copies, and what it does not
| Copied | Not copied |
|---|---|
| The configuration, including the prompt | Anything private — a fork of a private template is refused |
| Description, category, type and tags | The original’s usage count and ratings, which start at zero |
| A link back to the original, kept as attribution | Your integrations — those are per account, so connect them yourself |
Your fork is private until you choose otherwise, and forking never touches the original. The original’s fork count goes up by one, which is the only thing the author sees.
Publishing your own
You do not need Pro for this. Publishing is available on both plans, and a submitted template is created as pending and appears in the marketplace only after a review — so a broken or empty template does not land in front of other people.
When it does not work as advertised
It runs but the answer is generic
The prompt is still the author’s. Edit system_prompt — a template you have not adapted is a demo of somebody else’s problem.
A tool in it does nothing
The template can ask for a tool, but it cannot bring the author’s connection with it. Connect that integration under Account → Integrations.
Fork is refused
Only public and official templates can be forked. A private one is not yours to copy.
Next
- Write your own instructions properly — see Create and configure an agent.
- Chain it with another agent — see Build a multi-agent workflow.