A template is referred to by a URI. In older templates that is the URI of the nanopublication itself; newer templates give the template a name of its own inside the nanopublication and mark it as embedded, and are then referred to by that name. Both forms remain valid.

Like any nanopublication, a template can be superseded by a new version, and forms opened on an older version can offer the latest one. A template can also declare a stable identity with dct:isVersionOf and name a space with gen:governedBy; then the current version is the newest one published by a member of that space, rather than by the holder of one particular key. This lets a community keep a shared template up to date even when its original author is no longer around. The same holds for the other two parts of a nanopublication: the forms for defining provenance and publication-info templates offer those two statements as well, and tools follow them there too.