diff --git a/R/help/getAliases.R b/R/help/getAliases.R
index 50e35fd7c..00985ea47 100644
--- a/R/help/getAliases.R
+++ b/R/help/getAliases.R
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-requireNamespace("jsonlite")
+loadNamespace("jsonlite")
 
 ip <- installed.packages()
 
diff --git a/R/rmarkdown/templates.R b/R/rmarkdown/templates.R
index dec8b97d0..93a7a0a81 100644
--- a/R/rmarkdown/templates.R
+++ b/R/rmarkdown/templates.R
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-requireNamespace("jsonlite")
-requireNamespace("yaml")
+loadNamespace("jsonlite")
+loadNamespace("yaml")
 
 pkgs <- .packages(all.available = TRUE)
 templates <- new.env()
diff --git a/src/rmarkdown/draft.ts b/src/rmarkdown/draft.ts
index 4a716e27e..8b1ca2193 100644
--- a/src/rmarkdown/draft.ts
+++ b/src/rmarkdown/draft.ts
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@ async function getTemplateItems(cwd: string): Promise<TemplateItem[]> {
     } catch (e) {
         console.log(e);
         void window.showErrorMessage((<{ message: string }>e).message);
+        return undefined;
     }
 }
 
@@ -80,8 +81,15 @@ async function launchTemplatePicker(cwd: string): Promise<TemplateItem> {
 
     const items = await getTemplateItems(cwd);
 
-    const selection: TemplateItem = await window.showQuickPick<TemplateItem>(items, options);
-    return selection;
+    if (items) {
+        if (items.length > 0) {
+            const selection = await window.showQuickPick<TemplateItem>(items, options);
+            return selection;
+        } else {
+            void window.showInformationMessage('No templates found.');
+        }
+    }
+    return undefined;
 }
 
 async function makeDraft(file: string, template: TemplateItem, cwd: string): Promise<string> {