Hosted Email Templates — Create, Render, and Send with Variable Substitution

#cli #email #automation #templates

The nylas template commands manage hosted email templates with variable substitution. Define a template once, render it with dynamic data, and send — no local files needed.

What hosted templates do

Templates are stored in Nylas and rendered server-side. Use {{variable}} placeholders for dynamic content (names, dates, URLs). Templates support HTML and plain text, with Mustache-style variable interpolation.

Quick Start

nylas template create \
  --name "welcome" \
  --subject "Welcome, {{name}}!" \
  --body "<h1>Hey {{name}}</h1><p>Your account is ready.</p>"

nylas email send \
  --to new-user@example.com \
  --template-id TPL_ID \
  --template-data '{"name": "Alice"}'

Key commands

Command	What it does
`nylas template list`	List hosted templates
`nylas template create --name N --subject S --body B`	Create a template
`nylas template show <id>`	Show template details
`nylas template update <id>`	Update a template
`nylas template delete <id> --yes`	Delete a template
`nylas template render <id> --data '{}'`	Preview rendered output
`nylas template render-html --body H --engine mustache --data '{}'`	Render inline HTML

Rendering a preview before sending

nylas template render <template-id> \
  --data '{"name": "Bob", "company": "Acme", "link": "https://example.com/onboard"}'

Outputs the fully-rendered HTML so you can verify before sending.

Sending with a template

nylas email send \
  --to customer@example.com \
  --template-id <id> \
  --template-data '{"name": "Alice", "invoice_url": "https://..."}'

The subject line and body variables are both interpolated from the data JSON.

Local templates vs hosted templates

Feature	Local (`nylas email templates`)	Hosted (`nylas template`)
Storage	On-disk files	Nylas API (cloud)
Sharing	Per-machine	Per-application (all users)
Variables	`{{var}}` in file	`{{var}}` via API
Best for	Personal scripts	Team/product emails