Templates

First-party templates live in a public repository: github.com/actuate-run/templates. Each template is one folder with an actuator.ts, a README.md and a .env.example.

Start a project from one by name:

npm create actuate my-bot -- --template deposit-reminder
# or, where @actuate/cli is already installed
actuate init my-bot --template deposit-reminder

This downloads the template’s files into my-bot/ and adds the usual package.json, tsconfig.json and .gitignore. Then npm install and npx actuate dev, as in the Quickstart. Use --ref <branch-or-tag> with either command to pin a version of the templates repository.

Most templates ship an actuate.config.json with example values (an approver’s chat ID, a support address). Replace them before you deploy; locally, messages to those addresses are just printed.

Agent tools

Small tools an AI agent calls over MCP. The model decides what should happen; the actuator decides how, with caps, approvals and an audit row the model cannot change. See Deterministic agent tools for the pattern.

Template	What it does	Leans on
refund-order	Refunds an order: amount capped in code, manager approval above a threshold, once per order, audit row	waitForApproval
approve-message	A person approves, edits or rejects the agent’s draft before anything is sent	waitForApproval
escalate-to-human	Opens a ticket, asks a person, and returns their answer or a clear timeout	waitForInput
lead-intake	Saves a lead, follows up on day 1 and day 3, stops when they reply	waitForEvent
schedule-follow-up	Sends a message at a validated future time unless the customer replies first	waitForEvent({ until })
order-status	Read-only order lookup over the actuator’s own SQLite, scoped to the customer’s email	ctx.db

Automations

Webhook- and cron-driven actuators.

Template	What it does	Capabilities
deposit-reminder	Holds a booking, sends a deposit payment link, reminds if unpaid, confirms on payment. Your first actuator builds a similar bot step by step	payment, messaging
support-escalation	LLM triage of support messages; refunds capped in code, with an approval gate above a threshold	llm, messaging, payment
payment-reconciler	Records payment webhooks exactly once in SQLite and flags amounts that don’t match	messaging (optional)
github-release-telegram	Posts a Telegram message when a GitHub release is published	messaging
daily-report	Collects events during the day and sends a morning summary on a cron	messaging

order-status and payment-reconciler (whose messaging is optional) deploy on the free Sandbox plan. The others declare messaging, payment or llm, so deploying them needs Maker. All of them run under actuate dev with no account.

Read each template’s README for the configuration and credentials it needs; .env.example lists the variables.

Contributing a template

Templates are ordinary actuators. A good one:

• passes actuate check with no errors;
• has defaults for every ConfigSchema field, so it runs under actuate dev with no configuration;
• keeps credentials out of the code and lists them in .env.example;
• explains in its README what it does, what it needs, and how to test it locally.

Open a pull request against actuate-run/templates with a new folder named in lowercase with hyphens.