Novel encoding methods for DNA-templated chemical libraries

•Encoding strategy has been a major research focus in DNA-encoded library.•This review focuses encoding strategies for DNA-templated libraries.•Three major types of encoding strategies are discussed in details with examples.•This review also discusses encoding strategy in DNA-encoded polymer libraries. Among various types of DNA-encoded chemical libraries, DNA-templated library takes advantage of the sequence-specificity of DNA hybridization, enabling not only highly effective DNA-templated chemical reactions, but also high fidelity in library encoding. This brief review summarizes recent advances that have been made on the encoding strategies for DNA-templated libraries, and it also highlights their respective advantages and limitations for the preparation of DNA-encoded libraries.