If you are not familiar with the oc command, refer to OpenShift - Getting Started with the oc command.

Let's say you have the following in a YAML file. In this trivial example, a resource named my-project-request-template will be created so that when a new project is created, the new project will have annotation openshift.io/description: proof of concept.

apiVersion: template.openshift.io/v1
kind: Template
metadata:
  name: my-project-request-template
objects:
- apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
  kind: Project
  metadata:
    annotations:
      openshift.io/description: proof of concept
      openshift.io/display-name: ${PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME}
      openshift.io/requester: ${PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER}
    name: ${PROJECT_NAME}
parameters:
- name: PROJECT_NAME
- name: PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME
- name: PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER    

Then the oc apply or oc create command with the -f or --filename option can be used to create the template in the openshift-config namespace.

~]$ oc create --filename my-project-request-templat.yml --namespace openshift-config
template.template.openshift.io/my-project-request-templat created

The oc get templates command can be used to show that the template now exists in the openshift-config namespace.

~]$ oc get templates --namespace openshift-config
NAME                          DESCRIPTION   PARAMETERS    OBJECTS
my-project-request-template                 0 (all set)   1

To make it so that the template is used when new projects are created edit the following resource.

oc edit project.config.openshift.io/cluster

And update the following, where name is an exact match of the name returned by the oc get templates --namespace openshift-config command

spec:
  projectRequestTemplate:
    name: my-project-request-template

Or in the OpenShift console, at Administration > Cluster Settings > Project > YAML tab.

The pods in the openshift-apiserver namespace should automatically restart. After each pod has restarted, the change should be live.

~]$ oc get pods --namespace openshift-apiserver
NAME                         READY   STATUS        RESTARTS   AGE
apiserver-59c8df77f6-qpzmx   0/2     Pending       0          41s
apiserver-846d775c67-kjjdx   2/2     Running       0          44d
apiserver-846d775c67-r8n5c   2/2     Terminating   0          44d
apiserver-846d775c67-wj665   2/2     Running       0          44d

Let us the oc new-project to create a new project.

oc new-project my-project

Or in the OpenShift console, at Home > Projects > Create Project.

In this example, the project indeed has annotation openshift.io/description: proof of concept. Nice, it works!

~]$ oc get project jeremy-test --output yaml
apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
kind: Project
metadata:
  annotations:
    openshift.io/description: proof of concept
    openshift.io/display-name: my project
    openshift.io/requester: john.doe
    openshift.io/sa.scc.mcs: s0:c33,c17
    openshift.io/sa.scc.supplemental-groups: 1001090000/10000
    openshift.io/sa.scc.uid-range: 1001090000/10000
  creationTimestamp: "2025-06-11T01:35:52Z"
  labels:
    kubernetes.io/metadata.name: my-project
    pod-security.kubernetes.io/audit: restricted
    pod-security.kubernetes.io/audit-version: v1.24
    pod-security.kubernetes.io/warn: restricted
    pod-security.kubernetes.io/warn-version: v1.24
  name: my project
  resourceVersion: "546950679"
  uid: 1d80a319-c99a-4873-93f0-705fe5f6b438
spec:
  finalizers:
  - kubernetes
status:
  phase: Active

The above example was trivial, where new projects will have annotation openshift.io/description: proof of concept. As a more realistic example, the oc adm create-bootstrap-project-template command can be used to create a YAML file that contains common project template settings.

oc adm create-bootstrap-project-template --output yaml > my-project-template.yml

Be default, the YAML file should contain the following markup.

~]$ cat my-project-template.yml
apiVersion: template.openshift.io/v1
kind: Template
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: project-request
objects:
- apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
  kind: Project
  metadata:
    annotations:
      openshift.io/description: ${PROJECT_DESCRIPTION}
      openshift.io/display-name: ${PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME}
      openshift.io/requester: ${PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER}
    creationTimestamp: null
    name: ${PROJECT_NAME}
  spec: {}
  status: {}
- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
  kind: RoleBinding
  metadata:
    creationTimestamp: null
    name: admin
    namespace: ${PROJECT_NAME}
  roleRef:
    apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
    kind: ClusterRole
    name: admin
  subjects:
  - apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
    kind: User
    name: ${PROJECT_ADMIN_USER}
parameters:
- name: PROJECT_NAME
- name: PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME
- name: PROJECT_DESCRIPTION
- name: PROJECT_ADMIN_USER
- name: PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER

Let's modify the YAML file. In this example, the options block contains knnd: LimitRange to set the minimum and maxiumum amount of CPU and memory for all of the containers in the project (see Create CPU Memory Limits using a YAML template file).

apiVersion: template.openshift.io/v1
kind: Template
metadata:
  creationTimestamp: null
  name: my-project-request-template
objects:
- apiVersion: v1
  kind: LimitRange
  metadata:
    name: "${PROJECT_NAME}-resource-limits"
  spec:
    limits:
      - type: Container
        default:
          cpu: 50m
          memory: 1Gi
- apiVersion: project.openshift.io/v1
  kind: Project
  metadata:
    annotations:
      openshift.io/description: ${PROJECT_DESCRIPTION}
      openshift.io/display-name: ${PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME}
      openshift.io/requester: ${PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER}
    creationTimestamp: null
    name: ${PROJECT_NAME}
  spec: {}
  status: {}
- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
  kind: RoleBinding
  metadata:
    creationTimestamp: null
    name: admin
    namespace: ${PROJECT_NAME}
  roleRef:
    apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
    kind: ClusterRole
    name: admin
  subjects:
  - apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
    kind: User
    name: ${PROJECT_ADMIN_USER}
parameters:
- name: PROJECT_NAME
- name: PROJECT_DISPLAYNAME
- name: PROJECT_DESCRIPTION
- name: PROJECT_ADMIN_USER
- name: PROJECT_REQUESTING_USER

Then the oc apply or oc create command with the -f or --filename option can be used to create the template in the openshift-config namespace.

~]$ oc create --filename my-project-template.yml --namespace openshift-config
template.template.openshift.io/project-request created

The oc get templates command can be used to show that the template now exists in the openshift-config namespace.

~]$ oc get templates --namespace openshift-config
NAME                          DESCRIPTION   PARAMETERS    OBJECTS
my-project-request-template                 0 (all set)   1
my-project-template                         5 (5 blank)   3

To make it so that the template is used when new projects are created edit the following resource.

oc edit project.config.openshift.io/cluster

And update the following, where name is an exact match of the name returned by the oc get templates --namespace openshift-config command

spec:
  projectRequestTemplate:
    name: my-project-template

Or in the OpenShift console, at Administration > Cluster Settings > Project > YAML tab.

The pods in the openshift-apiserver namespace should automatically restart. After each pod has restarted, the change should be live.

~]$ oc get pods --namespace openshift-apiserver
NAME                         READY   STATUS        RESTARTS   AGE
apiserver-59c8df77f6-qpzmx   0/2     Pending       0          41s
apiserver-846d775c67-kjjdx   2/2     Running       0          44d
apiserver-846d775c67-r8n5c   2/2     Terminating   0          44d
apiserver-846d775c67-wj665   2/2     Running       0          44d

Let us the oc new-project to create a new project.

oc new-project my-project

Or in the OpenShift console, at Home > Projects > Create Project.

In this example, since my-project-requests-template contained a spec to create a limits resource named my-project-resource-limits, the oc get limits command can be used to see that now, by default, when a new project is created, the my-project-resource-limits resource will also be created.

~]$ oc get limits --namespace my-project
NAME                         CREATED AT
my-project-resource-limits   2022-08-06T03:43:59Z