diff --git a/docs/04.-Chat-Completions.md b/docs/04.-Chat-Completions.md
index 43612e9..647ee92 100644
--- a/docs/04.-Chat-Completions.md
+++ b/docs/04.-Chat-Completions.md
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@ A chat completions request to TabbyAPI also supports custom template variables i
 }
 ```
 
+> [!NOTE]
+> To preserve compatibility with other standards, `chat_template_kwargs` can be used instead of `template_vars`
+
 Now let's pass the custom var in the following template:
 ```jinja2
 I'm going to say {{ test_var }}
diff --git a/endpoints/OAI/types/chat_completion.py b/endpoints/OAI/types/chat_completion.py
index 36934a8..15988cc 100644
--- a/endpoints/OAI/types/chat_completion.py
+++ b/endpoints/OAI/types/chat_completion.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from pydantic import BaseModel, Field, field_validator
+from pydantic import AliasChoices, BaseModel, Field, field_validator
 from pydantic.json_schema import SkipJsonSchema
 from time import time
 from typing import Literal, Union, List, Optional, Dict
@@ -65,7 +65,11 @@ class ChatCompletionRequest(CommonCompletionRequest):
     messages: List[ChatCompletionMessage] = Field(default_factory=list)
     prompt_template: Optional[str] = None
     add_generation_prompt: Optional[bool] = True
-    template_vars: Optional[dict] = {}
+    template_vars: Optional[dict] = Field(
+        default={},
+        validation_alias=AliasChoices("template_vars", "chat_template_kwargs"),
+        description="Aliases: chat_template_kwargs",
+    )
     response_prefix: Optional[str] = None
     model: Optional[str] = None