---
id: 01M4WNEPZJ53VQXB2H19GFR4S1
type: page
title: Templates guide
description: Every built-in template, from problem statement to postmortem, mapped to the stage of a product where it is written.
order: 20
updated: 2026-09-16
---

## One template per document a product team writes

A template is a type plus a starting body. Several templates can start documents of one type: `prd` and `rfc` are both specs, `adr` and `deprecation` are both decisions. `notdocs templates` lists every one with its type and a line on what it is for; the new-document dialog shows the same list. A repository adds or replaces templates with files in `docs/_templates/`, see [Documents](documents.md#templates-and-custom-types).

```sh
notdocs docs new docs/specs/search.md --title "Search" --template prd
notdocs docs new docs/postmortems/2026-09-16-api.md --title "API outage" --template postmortem
```

The templates below are grouped by the stage of a product where each is written. Early on, `prd`, `rfc`, `launch` and `runbook` cover most of the value; the rest earn their place as the team grows.

## Discovery

| Template      | Type     | What it is                                                                   |
| ------------- | -------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `problem`     | `brief`  | A problem statement or opportunity brief: the pain, who has it, the evidence |
| `competitive` | `report` | Market and competitive analysis, exportable to Word and PDF                  |

## Definition

| Template  | Type      | What it is                                                                 |
| --------- | --------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `prd`     | `spec`    | Product requirements: users, stories, scope, out of scope, success metrics |
| `persona` | `persona` | Who a user is: goals, frustrations, how they work today                    |
| `journey` | `page`    | A journey map: stages, actions, thoughts, pain points                      |
| `pricing` | `spec`    | Pricing and packaging: tiers, limits and the reasoning                     |

A roadmap is the `roadmap.md` page `notdocs init` writes, a [query block](query-blocks.md) over the tasks.

## Design

| Template        | Type     | What it is                                                            |
| --------------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `research`      | `report` | UX research findings: method, participants, findings, recommendations |
| `accessibility` | `spec`   | Accessibility requirements against WCAG                               |

## Engineering

| Template         | Type       | What it is                                                         |
| ---------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `rfc`            | `spec`     | A technical design: context, goals, design, alternatives, rollout  |
| `adr`            | `decision` | An architecture decision record with the options that were weighed |
| `decision`       | `decision` | The shorter record: context, decision, consequences                |
| `threat-model`   | `spec`     | Security threat model and data-handling review                     |
| `infrastructure` | `spec`     | Environments, pipeline, infrastructure as code, access             |
| `standards`      | `page`     | Engineering standards and the definition of done                   |

## Launch

| Template                                | Type       | What it is                                                                                |
| --------------------------------------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `launch`                                | `launch`   | The launch checklist an agent or a person works through                                   |
| `release`                               | `release`  | Release notes for one version                                                             |
| `battlecard`                            | `playbook` | Sales positioning, objections and answers                                                 |
| `brief`                                 | `brief`    | A marketing brief: objective, audience, positioning, messages                             |
| `playbook`                              | `playbook` | A support playbook: questions, answers, when to escalate                                  |
| `terms`, `privacy`, `nda`, `dpa`, `sla` | the same   | The legal set, as [business documents](business-documents.md) that export to Word and PDF |

## Operations

| Template            | Type         | What it is                                                   |
| ------------------- | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `runbook`           | `runbook`    | How to operate a service and fix its common failures         |
| `oncall`            | `page`       | The on-call rotation, severity levels and escalation         |
| `slo`               | `slo`        | A service level objective, its indicators and alerts         |
| `disaster-recovery` | `runbook`    | Backups, recovery objectives and the recovery steps          |
| `postmortem`        | `postmortem` | An incident report: timeline, impact, root cause, follow-ups |
| `user-guide`        | `page`       | A customer-facing guide or onboarding page                   |

## Growth

| Template           | Type         | What it is                                                   |
| ------------------ | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `metrics`          | `page`       | Metric definitions: north star, activation, retention, churn |
| `experiment`       | `experiment` | An experiment brief: hypothesis, variants, metric, result    |
| `feedback`         | `page`       | A customer feedback log and its themes                       |
| `quarterly-review` | `meeting`    | A quarterly product review or retrospective                  |
| `deprecation`      | `decision`   | Retiring a feature: who is affected, timeline, migration     |

:::tip[Types that carry structure]
`runbook`, `postmortem`, `release`, `experiment`, `persona`, `brief`, `slo` and `playbook` are types of their own, with fields a board or a query block can group by: a postmortem's `severity`, an experiment's `status`, an SLO's `service`. The rest start ordinary pages, specs, decisions and meetings. See [Documents](documents.md) for every field.
:::