I think the reason is Handlebars is supposed to look and act like Mustache and templates aren't named in Mustache, so they don't get named in "regular" Handleba

I think the reason is Handlebars is supposed to look and act like Mustache and templates aren't named in Mustache, so they don't get named in "regular" Handlebars: var getHtml = Handlebars.compile("<div>yad yada...</div>"); And then following the rule of least surprise, if templates aren't partials during normal usage, then they shouldn't be with precompilation. At least that's my guess. I didn't figure out my trick until digging through the source to figure out what was different. (Not much - just how/where they're stored & referenced.)