# Validate AWS SAM template files
<a name="serverless-sam-cli-using-validate"></a>

Validate your templates with `sam validate`. Currently, this command validates that the template provided is valid JSON / YAML. As with most AWS SAM CLI commands, it looks for a `template.[yaml|yml]` file in your current working directory by default. You can specify a different template file/location with the `-t` or `--template` option.

Example:

```
$ sam validate
<path-to-template>/template.yaml is a valid SAM Template
```

**Note**  
The `sam validate` command requires AWS credentials to be configured. For more information, see [Configuring the AWS SAM CLI](using-sam-cli-configure.md).