Standard Templates
What should a standard template make easier to produce, compare, and improve?
Continuous improvement requires three things: a template to fill in, a procedure to follow, and an artifact to produce. Each cycle improves all three.
| Layer | What | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Template | What you fill in | Consistent structure |
| Procedure | How you fill it in | Repeatable process |
| Artifact | What you produce | Comparable result |
What templates exist and what question does each answer?
Template Readiness
A template that ships without implementation steps creates plans that look active but have no executable work. Name + objective alone is a skeleton, not a template.
| Gate | Check | Fail if... |
|---|---|---|
| Completeness | Template has at least 3 implementation steps between bookend tasks | Steps missing — plan runs but produces nothing |
| Dependencies | Every blockedBy reference resolves to an actual step | Phantom reference — dependency chain breaks silently |
| Assumptions | Every number, threshold, or default has a stated conviction level | Implicit assumption — unmeasured micro-setpoint |
| Hook compatibility | Template output passes the same gates as manual work | Generator produces code that fails at commit time |
| Instrument calibration | Tools that track issues can themselves log issues | Broken tracker — feedback loop breaks at the meta-level |
A template that fails any gate is a draft, not a standard. Mark it D per Process Maturity and fix before shipping.
Failure Modes
- Skeleton template — the artifact has a name and objective, but no executable steps.
- Phantom dependency — a
blockedByreference points to work that does not exist. - Hidden assumption — a threshold, score, or default appears without conviction or source.
- No feedback loop — the template produces output, but no check can prove whether it worked.
Locations
- Diagram Templates — Thinking instruments: maps, canvases, reasoning frameworks
- Business Templates — Operational checklists: the artifacts that keep a business on course
Industry Knowledge Base
5P pillar templates — copy-and-fill stencils for each of the five pillars any industry page uses.
| Template | Pillar | Question answered |
|---|---|---|
| Players | players | Who participates in this industry — and what routing signal does each counterparty carry? |
Content
| Template | Question |
|---|---|
| Capability Guide Template | How do I write an agency capability page that teaches a trainable loop? |
| Index Page Standard | How do I write an index page that routes before it teaches? |
| Hub Index Template | How do I write a section index that orients without teaching? |
Page Flow (.claude/rules/page-flow.md) | What rhythm does every page follow? |
Fact-Star (.claude/rules/fact-and-star-architecture.md) | Where does content live? |
Thinking
| Template | Question |
|---|---|
| Agent & Instrument Diagram | How do agents orchestrate? |
| Outcome Map | What does success look like? |
| Value Stream Map | Where does time die? |
| Dependency Map | What must happen first? |
| Capability Map | What can we actually do? |
| Business Model Canvas | How does value flow? |
| Empathy Map | What does the player feel? |
| Affinity Diagram | What groups emerge from noise? |
Failure Modes
- Skeleton template — the page names an objective but gives no implementation steps.
- Phantom dependency — a generated plan references a step that does not exist.
- Unmeasured default — a threshold or assumption appears without conviction level.
- Hook mismatch — generated output fails the same checks manual work must pass.
- Broken feedback — the template cannot log what went wrong with its own output.
Context
- Templates — Thinking instruments: Maps, Canvases, Reasoning, Loops
- Business Artifacts — Operational instruments: the control loops that run a business
- PRD Requirements — The PRD spec that execution plans implement
- Process Optimisation — PDCA loop that templates follow
- Navigation System — The three systems every template can diagnose
- Questions Library — Questions standard applied to every page
- Naming Standards — How templates get labelled consistently
- Work Charts — Who does what, human vs AI — the factory floor map
- BOaaS — The business model that sells templated procedures as a service. Engineered as Work Charts: RFP workflow first
- First Principles — Systematically establish what's true before filling templates
Questions
What would change if you held every template to the same standard you hold code — defined inputs, expected outputs, and a test that can fail?
- Which templates in the inventory currently lack a feedback loop — and is that why they aren't compounding?
- When a template produces the same answer regardless of which system you point it at, is the template broken or is the operator?
- What's the difference between a template that improves your thinking and one that merely organises it?
- If your template's output can't pass the same gates as hand-written work, is the template saving time or deferring it?