I think I figured it out. I am pretty sure that I needed a resolver component.
 
Sorry for jumping the gun on posting.
 
From: Joseph Henry 
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2013 9:54 AM
To: CDT General developers list.
Subject: Extending Code Templates
 
 
 
Hi,
 
I am in need to distributing some default code templates with our plugin and am having a hard time getting this to work.
 
I have created an extension in my plugin org.eclipse.ui.editors.templates and created an include child.
 
For the simple case I want to create a C Source code template similar to
org.eclipse.cdt.ui.text.codetemplates.csourcefile But I want it to use our companies default comment header.
 
I used the file /org.eclipse.cdt.ui/templates/default-codetemplates.xml as an example and was able to create a template using the default variables, but when I tried to create a new variable, it would not work.
 
How I attempted to create a variable was to define a section in the xml with the variable name, and define its content. I am guessing that is not the right way because it does not work.
 
I guess my question is: How do you create a substitution variable for a code template? My xml is pasted below.
 
 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<templates>
                
                <template name="sas_c_file_comment" id="com.sas.tools.cdt.ui.text.codetemplates.cFileComment" context="org.eclipse.cdt.ui.text.codetemplates.filecomment_context" enabled="true"
                                description="Default comments for a SAS C Source File">
/*---------------------------------------------------------------------
*  Copyright (C), ${year}
*  SAS Institute Inc., Cary, N.C. 27513, U.S.A.  All rights reserved.
* --------------------------------------------------------------------
*
*  NAME:       {file_name}
*  AUTHOR:     {user}
*  DATE:       {date}
*  SUPPORT:    {user} - 
 *  PRODUCT:    
 *  LANGUAGE:   C
*  SCRIPT:     
 *  PURPOSE:    
 *
*  HISTORY:
*    Defect    Action                        Date        Name
*    ----------------------------------------------------------------
*    
 *    ----------------------------------------------------------------
*/
                </template>
                <template name="SAS C Source File" id="com.sas.tools.cdt.ui.text.codetemplates.csourcefile" description="Default SAS C Source Template" context="org.eclipse.cdt.core.cSource.contenttype_context"
 enabled="true">              
                   ${sas_c_file_comment}
 
       ${includes}
 
       ${declarations}
    </template>
                
 
</templates>
 
 
Thanks,
Joseph.