diff --git a/tools/internal/spec/spec.go b/tools/internal/spec/spec.go
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/internal/spec/spec.go
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+package spec
+
+/*
+With the intended behavior of Template you can scaffold an integration package with
+just a few entries. Here's a speculative example of YAML you'll find to build something
+like we created for couchdb in the examples repo...
+
+```yaml
+version: 0.0.1
+name: CouchDB
+id: couchdb
+author: Nathan Slaughter
+status: development
+vars:
+	receiver:
+	  endpoint: http://couchdb:5984
+	  username: otelu
+	  password: otelp
+	  collection_interval: 10s
+	image: couchdb
+	environment:
+	  COUCHDB_USER: otelu
+	  COUCHDB_PASSWORD: otelp
+	ports:
+	  metrics: 5984
+	  app: 5986
+
+# remove plural of name
+
+----------
+templates:
+  - dynamically rendered with vars
+assets:
+  - any file that is static
+----------
+
+examples:
+  vars: <the top-level vars>
+
+  # is it static - this example .. or template
+
+  - templates:
+    - name:
+      location:
+
+dashboards:
+  - 
+alerts:
+  -
+images:
+  - 
+----------
+
+templates:
+  - names: ["compose/appreceiver/solo"]
+    location: examples/compose/docker-compose.yml
+  - names: ["compose/appreceiver/cluster"]
+    vars:
+    	nodes: 3
+    	environment:
+    		NODENAME: ``
+    location: examples/compose/docker-compose.cluster.yml
+assets:
+  - 
+```
+
+Top-level values can be used throughout all of the templates.
+
+- How to configure for compose
+- How to configure template for app config file
+
+This would seem valuable as it's 27 lines replacing 164 lines. But what's just as important is that every aspect of
+our integration packages that we can manage through templates can now be changed in mass. This gives us flexibility
+to apply the data for multiple purposes. Using concise data for each integration that captures only what's different in each case will provide us considerably
+
+The primary use cases that I'm contemplating are for testing. But this
+becomes a valuable
+gathering data
+*/
+type Template struct {
+	Name     string // used to lookup the template in project
+	Location string // relative path where template is rendered
+	Vars     map[string]string
+}
+
+type Spec struct {
+	Version    string   `json:"version,omitempty"` // spec version - we can use this to determine how to parse the spec
+	ID         string   `json:"id"`                // unique id for the service
+	Name       string   `json:"name"`              // name of the service - e.g. Cassandra, MongoDB
+	Author     Author   `json:"author,omitempty"`
+	Categories []string `categories:"tags,omitempty"` // provides context on particular things relevant to the integration
+	Status     string   `json:"status,omitempty"`     // e.g. (development|experimental|supported)
+	/* TODO:
+	Make an IntegrationStatus type with statuses like
+	- deprecated - we will fix bugs, but the legacy package may remain temporarily as a resource while customers migrate
+	- development - this integration doesn't yet include a dashboard
+	- experimental - uses an unsupported approach though it is what we would recommend to a customer
+	- supported - we intend to maintain
+	*/
+	Matrix    Matrix `json:"matrix,omitempty"`
+	Vars      map[string]string
+	Templates []Template `json:"templates,omitempty"`
+	Assets    []Asset    `json:"assets,omitempty"`
+	Changelog Changelog  `json:"changelog,omitempty"`
+}
+
+type Change struct {
+	Description string `json:"description,omitempty"`
+	Date        string `json:"date,omitempty"`
+}
+
+type Changelog struct {
+	Path    string   `json:"path,omitempty"`
+	Changes []Change `json:"changes,omitempty"`
+}