What causes "invalid content template path" in siyuan-note/siyuan?

Pass only the template's path relative to /templates/, e.g. "basic.md" or "sub/tpl.md".

invalid content template path

Error message

invalid content template path

What it means

resolveDocContentTemplatePath validates a template path supplied for applying a document content template. It rejects paths that are empty, resolve to '.', are absolute, or escape the templates root via '..' components. This is a path-safety guard ensuring only relative paths inside <data>/templates/ can be used.

Solutions

Pass only the template's path relative to <data>/templates/, e.g. "basic.md" or "sub/tpl.md".
Strip any leading slash or workspace prefix from the path before calling; use the path exactly as listed under Templates in the UI.
If the caller received the path from user input, reject/trim empty and absolute values before invoking the API.

Example fix

// before
applyDocContentTemplate(boxID, "/home/user/data/templates/tpl.md", ...)
// after
applyDocContentTemplate(boxID, "tpl.md", ...)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

function isValidTemplatePath(p) {
  if (typeof p !== "string") return false;
  let t = p.trim().replace(/^\//, "");
  if (!t || t === "." || t === "..") return false;
  return !/^(\/|[A-Za-z]:[\\/])/.test(p) && !t.split("/").includes("..");
}
if (!isValidTemplatePath(templatePath)) throw new Error("invalid template path");

Prevention

Always store and pass template paths relative to the workspace templates directory
Never construct template paths from absolute filesystem locations
Normalize user input with path normalization before sending to the API

When it happens

Trigger: Calling applyDocContentTemplate (e.g. via the templates API) with a templatePath that is "", ".", an absolute path like "/etc/passwd" or "C:/tmp/t.md", or a path starting with "../" after trimming a leading slash.

Common situations: Passing a full filesystem path instead of the template's name-relative path; concatenating user home dirs into the path; a client sending an empty template field when the user did not pick a template.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ec0b35c6326aa3ab. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/model/template.go:1220

		if "name" == key || "alias" == key || "bookmark" == key || "memo" == key || "icon" == key ||
			strings.HasPrefix(key, "custom-") {
			tree.Root.SetIALAttr(key, value)
		}
	}
	tree.Root.SetIALAttr("updated", util.CurrentTimeSecondsStr())
	if err = indexWriteTreeUpsertQueue(tree); nil != err {
		return err
	}
	av.BatchUpsertBlockRel(tree.Root.ChildrenByType(ast.NodeAttributeView))
	return nil
}

func resolveDocContentTemplatePath(templatePath string) (string, error) {
	templatePath = strings.TrimPrefix(filepath.ToSlash(strings.TrimSpace(templatePath)), "/")
	cleanPath := filepath.Clean(filepath.FromSlash(templatePath))
	if "" == cleanPath || "." == cleanPath || filepath.IsAbs(cleanPath) || ".." == cleanPath ||
		strings.HasPrefix(cleanPath, ".."+string(os.PathSeparator)) {
		return "", errors.New("invalid content template path")
	}
	templateRoot := filepath.Join(util.DataDir, "templates")
	absPath := filepath.Join(templateRoot, cleanPath)
	if !gulu.File.IsSubPath(templateRoot, absPath) {
		return "", errors.New("content template path is outside templates directory")
	}
	if !filelock.IsExist(absPath) {
		return "", fmt.Errorf("content template [%s] not found", templatePath)
	}
	realRoot, err := filepath.EvalSymlinks(templateRoot)
	if nil != err {
		return "", err
	}
	realPath, err := filepath.EvalSymlinks(absPath)
	if nil != err {
		return "", err
	}
	info, err := os.Stat(realPath)

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