Exclusive hadronic $\tau$ decays, within & beyond the Standard Model

Semileptonic exclusive tau decays in the Standard Model are reviewed. As it is well-known, they are a privileged arena to learn about low-energy hadronization. They also allow for a number of clean new physics tests, which have attracted much attention recently, probing scales as high as a few TeV. In light of forthcoming Belle-II data, perspectives on this area are bright.