Based on the .NET Templating engine https://github.com/dotnet/templating.

This engine is used in the dotnet new command (docs) and in Visual Studio (File -> New -> ..)

Features:

• additional templates can be installed from a directory or a nuget package (remote by id or local)
• support options, bundling files, post install actions, variabile substitution, etc
• discovery of template packages by package type
• template can contains files, a project, multiple projects, anything.
• some types (like project) have special features (target framework, etc)

Some Docs:

• dotnet new docs
• Custom templates docs

Some samples and how to:

• .net template samples
• list of additional avaiable packages

The base is the .template.config/template.json file, who contains the info about the template.