Templates

Templates make agent output consistent. A template is a reusable page scaffold with headings, optional visible helper text, hidden guidance comments, and typed properties that render into frontmatter.

What templates contain

Part	Purpose
Name and slug	Human label and stable identifier used by UI, CLI, and MCP.
Category	Product, engineering, marketing, business, work, or your own grouping.
Source type	Markdown or MDX. Pages created from templates keep that source type.
Builder	Structured title, intro, and h2/h3/h4 sections.
Guidance	Markdown comments such as <!-- guidance: ... --> that tell agents what each section should contain.
Properties	Typed fields rendered into frontmatter.

Property types are text, longtext, number, date, datetime, boolean, select, and tags.

Built-in templates

New workspaces are seeded with editable templates:

Category	Templates
Product	PRD, feature brief, discovery notes
Engineering	RFC/tech design, postmortem, ADR, runbook
Marketing	Launch plan, campaign brief
Business	Executive one-pager
Work	Meeting notes, weekly update, 1:1 agenda, project kickoff, retrospective

Built-ins are normal workspace rows. You can edit or delete them.

Browser workflow

1. Open Settings > Templates.
2. Create or edit a template.
3. Define fields in the properties table.
4. Add guidance comments inside each section.
5. Use New from template in the sidebar.

The page created from a template is a normal page. It has versions, comments, attachments, sharing, search, and Backup to Git like any other page.

MCP workflow

Agents list, read, render, create, and update templates through the consolidated tool surface:

// List templates: fetch the workspace with include=["templates"].
await mcp.call("fetch", {
  workspace_id: "wks_123",
  resource_id: "wks_123",
  include: ["templates"],
});

// Read one template (source + properties spec).
await mcp.call("fetch", {
  workspace_id: "wks_123",
  resource_id: "tpl_prd",
  include: ["source", "properties"],
});

// Render a template into Markdown without saving.
await mcp.call("render_template", {
  workspace_id: "wks_123",
  template: "prd",
  title: "Search redesign",
  properties: { owner: "platform", status: "review" },
});

// Create a page from a template — create_page accepts template_id directly.
await mcp.call("create_page", {
  workspace_id: "wks_123",
  template_id: "prd",
  title: "Search redesign",
  properties: { owner: "platform", status: "review" },
});

Template fetch returns source with guidance comments intact so agents can follow the intended structure.

CLI workflow

vpg templates list
vpg templates list --category product
vpg templates get prd
vpg templates render prd --title "Search redesign" --set owner=platform
vpg pages create --template prd --title "Search redesign" --set owner=platform

# --agent mode:
vpg --agent templates render prd --title "Search redesign" --set owner=platform

Template create and update commands accept JSON via --args-file or --args, or per-field --set key=value (including dotted paths like --set properties.owner.required=true):

vpg templates create --args-file ./executive-review.json
vpg templates update prd --set name="PRD (v2)"

{
  "name": "Executive Review",
  "slug": "executive-review",
  "description": "Reusable executive review scaffold",
  "category": "business",
  "builder": {
    "title": "{{ title }}",
    "sections": [
      {
        "level": 2,
        "heading": "Context",
        "guidance": "State why this decision matters now."
      }
    ]
  },
  "properties": [
    {
      "key": "owner",
      "label": "Owner",
      "type": "text",
      "required": true
    }
  ]
}

Notes

• Template slugs must be unique inside a workspace.
• Heading levels in the structured builder are 2, 3, or 4.
• Updating template source creates template versions.
• Creating a page from a template emits normal page-created audit and review events.