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Creating a template

Walk-through for authoring a new template from scratch. The format-string field, group-by keys, required metadata, the readable-names toggle, and the alt-text voice.

Last updated April 27, 2026

Pro feature

Saving and editing templates is a Pro feature. Free users can still apply the built-in starter templates.

There are two entry points for authoring a template:

  1. From the workspace: build the format with the Format Builder, then click Save as Template — the entry point lives inside the toolbar's Format ▾ → Templates section, and inside the Format Builder card itself. Either opens the editor with the current format string and Readable Names toggle pre-populated for you.
  2. From the dashboard: open /dashboard/templates → New Template. Blank slate; fill every field manually.

The editor tour

The dialog reads top to bottom in the order the fields actually matter. Required fields are marked with a red asterisk; everything else is optional.

  1. Basics — Name, Category, Icon

    Every template needs a descriptive name (shown in the picker). Category is a free-text label that groups templates together in the dashboard list — Photography, E-commerce, Real Estate, etc. Icon takes any Lucide icon name and renders it on the picker card.

  2. Filename Format

    The single source of truth for how this template renames files. Drop chips for tokens ({sku}, {descriptor}, {group}, {val:KEY}, {seq}, {date}, {ext}), type literal separators between them, and watch the live sample preview render below. Warnings surface in-line if a token is malformed or unknown. The full grammar is documented in the token reference.

  3. Readable Names toggle

    Sits directly under the format field. When on, the rendered slug is post-processed: hyphens and underscores become spaces, and each word is Title Cased. nike-airmax-90-black-side-01.jpg becomes Nike Airmax 90 Black Side 01.jpg. The extension is preserved as-is. Off by default for SEO/PIM-friendly templates; on by default for the Manual Groups starter where humanized names are the whole point.

  4. Group by — default grouping keys

    Optional. The metadata keys this template wants the workspace to bucket images by when applied. For an e-commerce template you might pick [brand, product]; for a wedding template, [client, phase]; for the manual-groups template, [group]. Users can override per-session from the workspace toolbar — these are defaults, not constraints. Suggestions auto-populate from the keys your format string references, so you rarely have to type a key manually. Leave empty if grouping isn't part of the template's identity.

  5. Required metadata — keys that must be filled

    Optional. The metadata keys this template considers necessary for a complete row. When applied, rows missing any required key surface a warning in the workspace so the user knows what's still pending before export. Optionally pin a key to a comma-separated allowed-value list — useful for closed enums like view: front, side, back, detail — and the row's metadata input becomes a dropdown limited to those values. Suggestions are scraped from your format string the same way Group By suggestions are.

  6. Alt-text Voice

    Optional. One sentence describing the tone you want AI-generated captions to follow. Spliced verbatim into the prompt, so be specific — "product-focused, SEO-friendly, mention material and use case in one short sentence" produces predictable output; "good alt text" does not. Leave empty to use the global default voice.

  7. Save

    Hit Save Template. It's immediately available in every workspace session on this account.

The Format-String field

The Format String field is the single highest-density control in the dialog. Four regions sit stacked:

  • Chip row (top) — the editable template source, rendered as draggable token chips with literal separators between them. Click a chip to edit its options (case=, sep=, pad=, fmt=, src=, default=).
  • Token palette — click-to-insert chips for every supported token. The palette is the discovery surface; the token reference is the spec.
  • Live preview — a sample filename rendered with fixture data so you can see the shape before saving.
  • Warnings — unterminated tokens, unknown identifiers, invalid option values surface here in red.

Editing an existing template

From /dashboard/templates, click a template to open its editor. Changes apply prospectively — already-renamed files are not retroactively updated. Delete a template from the same screen; the built-in starter templates cannot be deleted but can be cloned and edited as your own.

Sharing templates

Templates are scoped to the authenticated user. There is no public template marketplace at launch. If you run multiple brand accounts, you can log into each one and re-save the template there; export/import of a JSON representation is on the roadmap.