Nuclei Template Path and Signing Fixer

What this fixes

Recurring failure modes:

• `[FTL] Could not run nuclei: no templates provided for scan`
• Templates not installed, wrong template directory, or empty directory
• Templates silently filtered (e.g., unsigned/tampered code templates)
• Large template sets reporting many runtime errors

Prerequisites

• `nuclei` installed
• Network access to fetch templates (or a pre-downloaded templates directory)
• File permissions to write Nuclei config and templates directory

Steps and commands

1. Baseline — confirm engine and template versions:

`nuclei -version`

1. Install or update templates (official):

• Update:

`nuclei -ut`

• If you suspect config/template path corruption, reset first:

`nuclei -reset`

Then re-run:

`nuclei -ut`

1. Confirm where templates live:

• Nuclei prints the path during install/update.
• Custom templates directory:

`nuclei -t /path/to/nuclei-templates -u https://example.com`

1. Validate templates (catch runtime and schema issues early):

`nuclei -validate -t /path/to/nuclei-templates`

1. If a single template fails with "no templates provided":

• Confirm the file exists:

`ls -la /full/path/template.yaml`

• Validate it directly:

`nuclei -validate -t /full/path/template.yaml`

1. Template signing pitfalls:

• If Nuclei warns about unsigned/tampered code templates, treat it as a supply-chain concern.
• Only sign templates you authored and have audited:

`nuclei -u https://example.com -t my-template.yaml -sign`

Expected outputs

• `nuclei -ut` completes with templates installed/updated
• `nuclei -validate` reports 0 (or a small, explainable set of) validation errors
• Scans run without `[FTL] no templates provided`

Common errors and troubleshooting

• `[FTL] ... no templates provided for scan`
• Templates directory is empty or filtered out.
• Fix: `nuclei -reset` → `nuclei -ut`, then confirm `-t` paths.

• Templates installed but "no templates found in path"
• Path mismatch or permissions issue.
• Confirm the directory exists and is non-empty; use an absolute path.

• `Found X templates with runtime error (use -validate ...)`
• Run `-validate` and either update templates or exclude noisy categories.

• Config path not writable
• Ensure your user can write `~/.config/nuclei/` (or run inside a writable workdir in containers).

References

• https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/opensource/nuclei/running
• https://docs.projectdiscovery.io/templates/reference/template-signing
• https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei/issues/5256
• https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei/issues/6617
• https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei/issues/6770
• https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates/issues/9040

Example inputs

• Target: https://example.com
• Templates: /opt/nuclei-templates
• Single template: /tmp/custom.yaml