Templates are made with a template. Nanodash offers \"Defining an assertion template\" (and counterparts for provenance and publication-info templates), where you enter the statements and placeholders described below in a form and publish the result. A newly published template shows up in the template lists shortly afterwards, grouped under its tag.

A template can also be written by hand as a nanopublication file and published with the command-line tools. The result is the same kind of nanopublication either way, so a hand-written template can later be reopened and revised in the form.