Template

An RCML template is a JSON tree with a fixed two-part structure: rc-head carries invisible metadata, and rc-body carries everything the recipient sees.

<rcml>
  ├─ <rc-head>   — metadata: fonts, default styles, named classes, preview text, brand style
  └─ <rc-body>   — visible content: sections, columns, content elements

The head/body split separates brand appearance from message content. rc-head holds everything that makes the email look like your brand — fonts, colour defaults, social links, logo. rc-body holds what the email says — the sections, images, text, and calls to action. Keeping them separate means you can update a brand colour without touching the content, or reuse the same template layout with a different visual identity.

rc-head

rc-head is not rendered into the email HTML. Its children configure the defaults and resources that rc-body elements draw on:

• <rc-brand-style> — references a saved brand-style preset by numeric ID
• <rc-font> — registers a web font loaded from a URL
• <rc-attributes> — sets default attribute values for body elements
• <rc-preview> — sets the inbox preview text shown before the email is opened
• <rc-class> — defines a named reusable style class
• <rc-plain-text> — provides the plain-text fallback version of the email

The theme system writes directly into rc-head. Calling applyTheme(doc, theme) populates rc-head with default-attribute nodes and named classes, leaving rc-body untouched. This is why the split matters in practice — templates are built once and themed separately. See Theme.

rc-body

rc-body holds the visible email content, organised as a row-column grid. Sections contain columns, and columns contain content elements. See Containers for how the grid is structured and Elements for what goes inside the columns.

Related

• Containers
• Elements
• RCML Reference