I am attempting to use form-fill fields in Confluence Global Templates, but the feature does not work when the field is not surrounded by spaces.

See https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/28402/auto-format-a-confluence-link-in-a-template?page=1#33240

This should work consistently no matter where the @VAR@ appears - if someone wants a literal @, they should enter @@ or @ or something.

The primary use case here is to support parametrizable links and other features where an editable string of text is embedded in a longer string.