Template sources

Last updated Jun 14, 2026

Matter's M1 template catalog draws from four open-source legal-document repositories. Every template revision carries a source.json provenance record (repo URL, commit SHA, SPDX license, ingestion timestamp, normalizer version). The catalog at /v1/templates?source_id=<id> filters by source.

Ironsides — formation & governance (CC0)

Public-domain dedication. Free to use, modify, and commercialize without attribution. Ironsides covers the Day-0 formation surface:

• Certificate of Incorporation
• Bylaws
• Action of Incorporator
• Initial Board Resolutions
• Founder Stock Purchase Agreement (multiple variants)
• Indemnification Agreement + Resolutions
• Secretary's Certificate
• Director / Officer Election
• 83(b) Election

Original repository: github.com/Ironsides/ironsides.

open-agreements — B2B commercial (MIT)

The largest curated open-source legal-template repository. MIT-licensed — free for commercial use with attribution. Coverage includes MNDA, CSA (with / without SLA), DPA, BAA, PSA, AI Addendum, Order Form, Pilot Agreement, Employment Offer Letter, IP-Inventions Assignment, Board / Stockholder Consent for SAFE, and ~30 others.

Original repository: github.com/open-agreements/open-agreements.

The repository also mirrors Common Paper and Bonterms templates in its structured {template}/metadata.yaml + {template}/selections.json

• DOCX body format. Matter's ingest CLI pulls from this single upstream rather than each source's individual repo — single commit- sha pin, single normalizer.

Common Paper / Bonterms — attribution required (CC BY 4.0)

The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license requires the rendered document to credit the original work. Matter implements this as:

• A non-removable <Attribution /> MDX node in every CC-BY template body. The MDX AST allowlist treats <Attribution /> as a required node when source.license starts with CC-BY-. Overlays cannot strip it.
• A last-page PDF footer at 9pt grey: Based on a template by Common Paper, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Original: <repo_url>.
• A "Source" card on the template detail page in the dashboard, plus the auto-generated source list that drives this very page.

YC SAFE + NVCA — placeholder until licensed

Y Combinator's SAFE templates and NVCA's Series A model documents are the canonical seed and Series A surfaces. Both carry copyright; their licenses for SaaS commercialization aren't explicitly granted. Matter ships placeholder catalog entries with availability: preview and license_review_required: true. Bodies land once licensing clearance with Y Combinator (license@ycombinator.com) and NVCA (dlu@nvca.org) is final.

In the meantime, customers can fork a YC SAFE into their own org_private revision by uploading the SAFE body they've licensed separately. The platform catalog row reserves the template_id slot so the upgrade lands automatically once Matter's clearance is final.

Ingestion environment

The ingest CLI runs in a separate Vercel project with no production-database credentials. Untrusted-input parsing (mammoth.js for DOCX, pdf-lib for PDFs) is sandboxed away from production secrets — a CVE in a parser cannot reach production data. The OSV-Scanner gate at bun run --filter @repo/templates osv-scan runs before every ingest and blocks vulnerable parser versions.

See also

• MCTF format — the seven-file directory shape every source produces.
• Customization — overlay grammar that lets customers tweak ingested templates without forking.