Template Improvement
Let your templates learn from how you actually do the task — one completed record at a time.
What is Template Improvement?
A template is your blueprint for a task you do over and over. You spawn it into a record and actually run it — and along the way you almost always change something. An extra material you grabbed. A step you skipped. A clearer way to word the plan.
Normally that knowledge dies inside the record. The next time you spawn the same template, you start over from the old blueprint — missing the same thing again.
The improvement cycle closes that gap. Once you've run a record, you can ask Fecit — from the record's menu — to compare it against the template it came from, spot what drifted, and offer to fold the change back in. You decide when, so your blueprint grows toward how you actually work without filling up with noise.
A scenario: Sunday meal prep
Let's follow one template through a full loop. Say you keep a "Sunday Meal Prep" template. It starts simple:
How the loop runs
Spawn a record and run it
Sunday arrives. You spawn a record from the template. At this moment the record is an exact copy — same materials, same steps. Then you start cooking, and reality nudges it.
Complete the record
You mark the record Completed. A completed record is a settled statement: this is how it actually went this time. Nothing happens automatically yet — Fecit won't pile up suggestions you never asked for.
Generate suggestions from the record's menu
When you want to fold what you learned back in, open the record's ⋯ menu and tap Generate suggestions. Only then does Fecit lay the record next to its origin template and look for what drifted. Each difference becomes a pending suggestion pinned to the template — never applied automatically.
It recognizes the same item even if you renamed it, so "roast chicken → roast chicken at 200°C" reads as an edit, not a brand-new step plus a deletion.
A suggestion appears on the template
Open the template later and you'll see a small indicator lit on each changed section — Preparation, Steps, and so on. Tap it to open the review.
Apply or dismiss — your call
Think of it as a pull request for your blueprint. Each suggestion shows the current value and the proposed one. Apply folds it into the template; Dismiss leaves the template untouched.
Maybe you apply the olive oil and the duration, accept the chicken edit, but dismiss the broccoli removal because next week you do want to steam it. Nothing changes without your tap — the suggestion is an offer, never an edit.
What gets compared
Fecit watches four areas of the record against the template:
Each can drift in three ways: add (in the record, not the template), remove (in the template, dropped from the record), and edit (the same item, changed).
Turning it on
The feature runs per template. Open a template, go to Document Settings, and enable Accept improve suggestions.
With it on, the Generate suggestions action shows up in the ⋯ menu of any record spawned from that template. Leave it off for templates you'd rather keep frozen — no menu item, no suggestions.
Good to know
- Dismissals stick. Say no once, and the same change from a later record won't ask again.
- No duplicates. Apply something once and it won't be proposed again — even if you complete the same record a second time.
- Stale ones disappear. If you've already edited the template by hand, a suggestion that no longer makes sense hides itself.
- Records aren't touched. Applying a suggestion changes only the template. Your completed record stays exactly as you finished it.
Tips
- Don't pre-perfect your templates. Start rough. Let a few real runs shape the blueprint instead of guessing every detail up front.
- Dismiss freely. A one-off change isn't worth folding in. Dismissing teaches Fecit what's noise, and it won't nag you about it again.
- Best for tasks you repeat. The more often you run a template, the more its suggestions converge on how you actually work.
Reflection that reaches the blueprint
Fecit's loop is goal → execution → reflection. The improvement cycle adds one arrow pointing back: execution rewrites the blueprint. What you learned by doing it once no longer stays trapped in a single record — it sets up the next run a little better prepared. Not the blueprint you wrote down, but the blueprint you've lived.