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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-2.0-UK
+
+Creating a Custom Template Configuration Directory
+**************************************************
+
+If you are producing your own customized version of the build system for
+use by other users, you might want to provide a custom build configuration
+that includes all the necessary settings and layers (i.e. ``local.conf`` and
+``bblayers.conf`` that are created in a new :term:`Build Directory`) and a custom
+message that is shown when setting up the build. This can be done by
+creating one or more template configuration directories in your
+custom distribution layer.
+
+This can be done by using ``bitbake-layers save-build-conf``::
+
+   $ bitbake-layers save-build-conf ../../meta-alex/ test-1
+   NOTE: Starting bitbake server...
+   NOTE: Configuration template placed into /srv/work/alex/meta-alex/conf/templates/test-1
+   Please review the files in there, and particularly provide a configuration description in /srv/work/alex/meta-alex/conf/templates/test-1/conf-notes.txt
+   You can try out the configuration with
+   TEMPLATECONF=/srv/work/alex/meta-alex/conf/templates/test-1 . /srv/work/alex/poky/oe-init-build-env build-try-test-1
+
+The above command takes the config files from the currently active :term:`Build Directory` under ``conf``,
+replaces site-specific paths in ``bblayers.conf`` with ``##OECORE##``-relative paths, and copies
+the config files into a specified layer under a specified template name.
+
+To use those saved templates as a starting point for a build, users should point
+to one of them with :term:`TEMPLATECONF` environment variable::
+
+   TEMPLATECONF=/srv/work/alex/meta-alex/conf/templates/test-1 . /srv/work/alex/poky/oe-init-build-env build-try-test-1
+
+The OpenEmbedded build system uses the environment variable
+:term:`TEMPLATECONF` to locate the directory from which it gathers
+configuration information that ultimately ends up in the
+:term:`Build Directory` ``conf`` directory.
+
+If :term:`TEMPLATECONF` is not set, the default value is obtained
+from ``.templateconf`` file that is read from the same directory as
+``oe-init-build-env`` script. For the Poky reference distribution this
+would be::
+
+   TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-meta-poky/conf/templates/default}
+
+If you look at a configuration template directory, you will
+see the ``bblayers.conf.sample``, ``local.conf.sample``, ``conf-summary.txt`` and
+``conf-notes.txt`` files. The build system uses these files to form the
+respective ``bblayers.conf`` file, ``local.conf`` file, and show
+users usage information about the build they're setting up
+when running the ``oe-init-build-env`` setup script. These can be
+edited further if needed to improve or change the build configurations
+available to the users, and provide useful summaries and detailed usage notes.
+