Email & SMS templates

Clerk offers the capability to override the default system email & SMS messages that are sent out during authentication flows, via its templating system.

The template editor enables you to change the wording and styling so that it is more consistent with your own branding.

It is also a useful way to translate the content to another target language in the case that English is not the default locale of your application.

It will be useful to take a look at the following terms as they will reappear in the rest of the guide:

In this section you can see which templates can be modified at the time of writing.

The following email templates are available for editing:

The following SMS templates are available for editing:

The email editor uses the Revolvapp email template editor plugin by Imperavi. To acquaint yourself with the template markup syntax, please consult the corresponding documentation page.

As you will see, the template markup is an HTML-like language and each type of node supports its own set of attributes which control its behavior. A lot of the attributes are borrowed from HTML itself.

Revolvapp allows the user to design the template using blocks and under the hood transpiles its markup to table-based HTML so that the resulting email renders consistently across email clients.

Both the email and SMS editor use the Handlebars templating language for the interpolation of dynamic values into your content via variables. It is a well established language, especially popular in the Javascript ecosystem, which has been adopted by leading Email Service Providers (ESPs) for templating as well.

The most core Handlebars concept you should bear in mind is that in order to output a variable you should wrap its name within double curly braces, for instance {{app.name}}. When the message is to be sent this will be replaced with the actual name of the application.

Using the variable insertion widgets, the variables will be inserted into the content at the desired position so there no need to write them by hand, though you can of course still do so if you like.

For further information on Handlebars we recommend you take a look at the official guides.

There will definitely be a learning curve before you master both Revolvapp syntax and Handblebars, but we have no doubt that you will be crafting beautiful templates in no time!

Please consult the following sub-sections to see which operations are available in the template editor. Note that depending on the state of the template and the current application subscription plan, one or more operations may not not available.

Editing templates allows you to customize existing Clerk-sent emails and SMS messages to make them more inline with your own branding.To edit a template, click on the desired template card from the template listing page that can be found at the following locations:

To persist your changes, click on the Apply Changes button at the bottom right. Your changes will then take immediate effect for the corresponding application instance.Templates are editable:

This allows you freely test the templating feature on your development environment so as to see if it fits your individual use case, before deciding on a plan upgrade.

The Preview operation enables you to get an idea of how the template will render when sent to the the recipient. This is useful for sampling your changes without actually having to commit them first.

To trigger a preview, you can click on the Preview Icon at the bottom left of the screen (see screenshot below).

In email templates, the app_logo and copyright sections (if present) will be replaced with their actual markup in this view. For both emails & SMS, the template variables will be replaced with sample values.

Previewing is available for all templates.

While editing a template, you can undo all changes since the last save by clicking on the Reset button at the bottom right of the Edit page.

Note that the button will be disabled if there are no changes since the last save.

Template reset is applicable to editable templates.

Even if you override a Clerk-provided template with your own customizations, you can always roll back to the system default template version by clicking on the Revert Icon (see screenshot below).

This can be useful if you want to start over from scratch.

Note: your current changes will be lost so please make sure you indeed wish to discard them prior to reverting. You will be asked to confirm your choice to prevent an unintentional action.

If your application has more than one instance, then you will also have the option of copying the current state of the editor to another instance.

This is especially useful for promoting changes from your development or staging environment to production, after you have tested them.

To copy to another instance you will need to first click on the Copy to icon (see screenshot below) and then from the sub-menu select the target instance.

Since this change will override the current state of the template on the target instance, you will be asked to confirm your choice.

Note that the copy icon will not appear if there are no other instances available on your application.

The email template editor comprises of template settings & the WYSIWYG editor.

The WYSIWYG editor is split into two parts:

Since the toolbar exposes quite a few tools, we will examine them in more detail in the following sub-sections.

The following settings can be changed for an email template:

The template name is a human-friendly name for identifying the template on the template listing page. It does not affect the outgoing email in any way.

Clerk will populate the from email address with:

<local part>@<your-domain>

The local part depends on the type of email sent (verification code, invitation, etc).

If you wish to override the local part with your own value, e.g. `accounting`, `sales`, etc, then set that value in the provided input.

Out of the box, Clerk will deliver your emails using its own Email Service Provider (ESP). However, if you wish to handle delivery of emails on your own, then you can toggle delivery by Clerk off.

Note: this is a per-template setting.

This means that Clerk will no longer be sending this particular email and in order to deliver it yourself you will need to listen to the emails.created webhook and extract the necessary info from the event payload.

Note that the toolbar contains 2 types of controls:

Opens a popup with the keyboard shortcuts that the editor supports. Note that the editor supports the usual Copy, Paste, Undo and Redo shortcuts you might be accustomed to from other editors.

Shows how the email will render on a mobile device with a portrait aspect ratio.

Click on the mobile view toggle again to return to desktop view.

Switches the editor to source mode. The source format is Revolvapp's own template syntax, which is HTML-like and transpiles to HTML that can be rendered by browsers and email clients.

For this tool to appear you will need to unselect any currently selected block.

To exit HTML / source mode, click on the toggle again.

Allows selecting a color or image as a background for the currently selected block.

Opens a popup with settings contextually based on the selected block or text.

This button allows you to insert a new block of content.For the button to appear you will need to select the existing block below which you would like the new block to be inserted.

The editor comes with a number of predefined blocks such as blocks with a header, image, button, multiple columns, etc.

Enables horizontal alignment (left, right or center).

Exposes a color picker so that you can select the color of the fonts in the affected block or text fragment.

Permits setting a border width, color and radius on a given block. Using the radius you can give a block rounded corners.

Shows a dropdown with the available variables for the current template.

For the variable button to appear, you will need to click inside a text node. Upon insertion the variable will be automatically wrapped in curly braces, there is no need to add them yourself.

Note that the invitation template supports public invitation metadata, whereas the verification code & magic link template support public user metadata (in the case that a user already exists).

You can interpolate a particular metadata key as follows:

{{user.public_metadata.foo.bar}}

Converts a selected text fragment into a link. Users can configure the link text and the URL that the link should point to.

Enables you to insert an image into the document.

Note: currently only providing a link to image is supported.

It is possible to configure the image width and Alt Tex, as well as turn it into a link.

As you may have noticed, the links and buttons in the Clerk-provided templates automatically show in the colors selected in the Customization > Theme section.Specifically:

Since you may not want all buttons or links to have this behavior, you will need to opt in by using the following classes:

These classes can be added as attributes to the Revolvapp template markup after toggling the editor to HTML (i.e. source) mode.

The email editor text area is intended mainly for authoring content, though if you click on a block, a set of tools will also appear, namely:

The SMS editor is much simpler to use since SMS supports plain text only. You can edit the message contents to your liking via the provided text area. You can also set up template settings according to your needs.

When you are satisfied with your edits you can persist them by clicking on the Apply Changes button.

The following settings can be changed for an SMS template:

The template name is a human-friendly name for identifying the template on the template listing page. It does not affect the outgoing SMS message in any way.

Out of the box, Clerk will deliver your SMS messagess using its own SMS Gateway. However, if you wish to handle SMS delivery on your own, then you can toggle delivery by Clerk off.

Note: this is a per-template setting.

This means that Clerk will no longer be sending this particular SMS and in order to deliver it yourself you will need to listen to the sms.created webhook and extract the necessary info from the event payload.

To insert a variable at the current cursor position, you can click on the corresponding variable badge in the variable widget that is located adjacent to the text area.

Note that the invitation template supports public invitation metadata, whereas the verification code template supports public user metadata (in the case that a user already exists).

You can interpolate a particular metadata key as follows:

{{invitation.public_metadata.foo.bar}}