How to Load a Template on an Existing Discord Server

Discord’s own template feature only creates new servers. If your community is already running, that is the wrong shape of tool: nobody wants to ask a thousand members to follow them to a fresh invite link just to get a better channel layout.

Xenon loads a template onto the server you already have. Members, roles you keep, and message history in channels you keep all stay where they are. This is the whole procedure, including the parts worth being careful about.

Before you start

Xenon has to be in the server, with permission to manage channels, roles and server settings. Add it from the home page if it is not.
You have to be allowed to load. By default only the server owner can run /template load. If you want moderators to be able to, change it with /settings permissions.
Pick a template. Browse the gallery or run /template list from inside Discord. Either way you end up with a short code, which is what the load command takes.

Load it

Take a backup first.
```
/backup create
```
This is the step that makes everything after it reversible. Do not skip it. A free backup saves your channels, categories, roles, permissions and server settings.
Load the template.
```
/template load name_or_id: 6p9d4EBbuYcM
```
The value is the code from the template’s page, or the full https://discord.new/... link. Xenon asks you to confirm before it changes anything, because loading replaces the channels and roles that are there now.
Wait for it to finish.

Discord rate limits how fast roles and channels can be created, so a large template takes a few minutes. Xenon works through it and reports when it is done.
Check the permissions before you announce anything.

In this order:
- @everyone. This is the one that matters. A template that grants it more than it should has just granted it to your whole server.
- Moderator and admin roles. Make sure they are above member roles in the list and that nothing above them is new.
- Bot roles. Bots that were working before may have lost access to channels that were recreated.

Keeping part of what you have

By default /template load replaces channels and roles both. You often do not want that. The options argument controls what gets touched:

/template load name_or_id: 6p9d4EBbuYcM options: !roles !delete-roles

That takes the template’s channel layout and leaves your existing roles exactly as they are, which is usually what you want on a server where people already have roles assigned.

The arguments are channels, delete-channels, roles, delete-roles and settings. Putting ! in front of one turns it off, * means all of them and !* means none, so you can start from nothing and add back only what you want:

/template load name_or_id: 6p9d4EBbuYcM options: !* channels

That creates the template’s channels and touches nothing else.

What to watch for

Role assignments do not survive a role rebuild. If you let the template replace your roles, members lose the roles they had, because the new roles are different roles with the same names. This is the single most common surprise, and !roles !delete-roles is the answer to it.

Templates carry permission mistakes. You inherit whatever the original server had, including anything its owner got wrong. Read the permissions rather than assuming.

Bots need reconnecting. A template can create a #bot-commands channel, but it cannot configure the bots that were supposed to use it. Expect to reassign bot roles and re-check channel access afterwards.

Big templates mean more cleanup. A layout with sixty channels and forty roles is sixty channels and forty roles you now have to look at.

If it went wrong

/backup load

Pick the backup you took in step 1 and your server goes back to how it was. That is why step 1 is step 1.

In short

Take a backup, load the template, use options to protect the parts of your server you want to keep, then check @everyone and your bot roles before you tell anyone. If you do not like it, load the backup.

Browse the template gallery to find one, or read more about what backups cover.