diff --git a/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml b/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1bb7a7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/zuul.d/project-templates.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+- project-template:
+    name: system-required
+    description: |
+      Jobs that *every* project in OpenDev CI should have by default.
+
+      This is automatically added to all projects in OpenDev CI, no
+      repository should use this directly.
+    # Include a check queue so that initially every repo has a check queue
+    # and we can report invalid zuul.yaml files.
+    check:
+      jobs: []
diff --git a/zuul.d/projects.yaml b/zuul.d/projects.yaml
index d7915e7..5146ef6 100644
--- a/zuul.d/projects.yaml
+++ b/zuul.d/projects.yaml
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+- project:
+    name: ^.*
+    templates:
+      - system-required
+
 - project:
     name: opendev/project-config
     check: