Working with Templates
Templates are reusable snippets and guides that you add to conversations to provide additional expertise, structure, or domain knowledge. They act as ready-made context that the AI can reference when answering your questions.
What are Templates?
Templates are pre-written instructions, checklists, best practices, or analysis recipes that you attach to your conversation via the @ menu or the Add Context button. Instead of retyping the same guidance repeatedly, templates let you quickly inject known instructions or domain expertise into the conversation context.
How Templates Affect AI Context
When you add a template to a conversation:
- Enhanced Instructions: The template’s content is injected into the system prompt, giving the AI explicit guidance on how to approach your question.
- Focused Responses: The AI uses the template content to structure answers, ensure completeness, or maintain specific standards.
- Consistency: Templates ensure the AI maintains the same approach and quality across similar queries without you having to repeat yourself.
- Domain Expertise: Templates can encode best practices, security guidelines, performance considerations, or any specialized knowledge relevant to your use case.
Types of Templates
Templates come in three main categories, it only changes when and how they are included.
Note : Whenever templates are added, they are shown on top of the input box and you can hover over them to see their content
1. Manual Templates
How to trigger: Use the ’@’ in input box and choose the template or keep typing its heading to search for it (without any space after ’@’)
How to remove: Click on the ‘x’ on tile which shows the heading the template (above the input box, if you can’t find it its not applied) or remove the @<heading> text in input box
When to use: For some task discription which isn’t required always.
Example use case: A database performance checklist that the AI should follow when analyzing slow queries.
2. Auto Templates
How to trigger: They are automatically applied all the chats (only for first message), accross all hosts. How to remove: Click on ‘x’ on the corresponding tile (on top of input box) When to use: If there is some knowledge which help in all cases. Example use case: Information about organisation, details about most used tables, some crucial things to always avoid and more.
3. Host-Specific Templates
How to trigger: When creating this template, you have to choose “Host Specific” option and then it will attached automatically whenever you select that host (even if multiple others are attached) How to remove: Click on the ‘x’ same as others. When to use: Details usefull whenever working with that host. Example use case: Storing what to query which databases in clickhouse-1-server
Using Templates Effectively
Templates in Action: A Complete Journey
Understanding templates is easier when you see them in action. Here’s a step-by-step journey from discovering templates to creating and using them effectively.
Step 1: Access Templates from Home
From the main dashboard, click on the Templates tile to access the template management interface. Templates are a core feature alongside SQL Editor, Alerts, and other database tools.
Step 2: Manage Your Templates
The Templates page displays all your templates in a searchable table. Each template shows its name, description, type (Manual, Auto, or Host-Specific), associated context, and available actions (view, edit, delete).
Key features:
- Search and filter - Find templates quickly by name or type
- View all types - See Manual, Auto, and Host-Specific templates at a glance
- Quick actions - Edit, view, or delete templates directly from the list
Step 3: Create a New Template
Click the + button to create a new template. The creation form includes:
- Name - A clear title for your template
- Description (optional) - Brief explanation of the template’s purpose
- Template Type - Choose between Auto, Manual, or Host Specific
- Content - The actual instructions or context that will be provided to the AI
The form shows helpful text explaining how each template type behaves: Auto templates are included automatically in the first message, Manual templates require explicit selection, and Host-Specific templates attach automatically when their associated host is in the chat context.
Step 4: View All Your Templates
Once created, all templates are visible in the main templates list. You can see the variety of templates you have—from host-specific database guides to manual checklists—all organized with their types clearly labeled.
The expanded view shows:
- Template diversity - Multiple templates for different purposes and hosts
- Type indicators - Clear labels showing Manual, Host-Specific, or Auto types
- Context associations - Which hosts or databases each template relates to
- Easy management - Quick access to all template actions