Planning templates

Overview

A planning template is a named structure you can apply at the start of a Work item's planning session. Zero ships built-in templates that are seeded on first run. You can create, export, and import your own.

Templates are stored as JSON files under zero-memory/global/templates/. They are local to the machine and not synced to the console.

Template shape

{
  "id": "uuid",
  "title": "Auth investigation",
  "description": "Template for investigating auth regressions",
  "tags": ["auth", "security"],
  "seed_tasks": [
    {
      "title": "Reproduce the failure",
      "task_type": "READ",
      "order": 1
    }
  ],
  "default_session_prompt": "Investigate the auth regression described above.",
  "playbook": [],
  "created_at": "2026-05-01T00:00:00Z",
  "version": 1
}

seed_tasks are pre-populated into the planning output. default_session_prompt is used as the initial prompt when a session is started from this template. playbook is reserved for future operator-defined step sequences.

Manage templates

List all available templates (built-in and custom):

GET /templates

Create a new template:

POST /templates
{
  "title": "My template",
  "description": "...",
  "tags": [],
  "seed_tasks": [],
  "default_session_prompt": null
}

Read, delete, export, or import a template by ID:

GET    /templates/:id
DELETE /templates/:id
GET    /templates/:id/export
POST   /templates/import

Apply to a Work item

Select a template during planning. This sets the template's seed tasks and default prompt on the planning run.

POST /cases/:id/planning/template
{ "template_id": "uuid" }

See Run a planning session for the full planning flow.

Save from a Work item

Capture a completed Work item as a template. Zero copies the title, description, and tasks from the latest session into a new template.

POST /cases/:id/save-as-template
{ "template_name": "Optional name" }

API reference