VIBE Template Author's Guide

Welcome to the official documentation for creating templates with VIBE. This guide is designed for subject matter experts, not programmers, and will walk you through everything from the basics to advanced features. Assistant and Review are optional extensions; this guide focuses on core template authoring first, with extension guides listed separately.

Start with the introduction or jump directly to the section you need.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction to VIBE

    • A high-level overview of what VIBE is and the problems it solves.

  2. Building a VIBE Template: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

    • A comprehensive, hands-on guide to building a template from the ground up, covering basic and advanced features.

  3. Core Concepts

    • Explains the fundamental pillars: the config.yml file, the Template file, Session Context, and the VIBE Engine.

  4. Template Authoring Guide (Jinja Essentials)

    • A curated guide to the most essential Jinja commands for use in your .md or .docx files.

  5. The Question Types Reference

    • A detailed dictionary of every available question type (text, number, date, list, etc.) and their options.

  6. Reusable Data with definitions

    • Create reusable data structures, recursive composition, and definition-driven questions.

  7. Building with Components

    • Learn VIBE's progressive component system: from simple file-drop components to sophisticated definition-linked components with the {{ insert() }} function.

  8. Session Context

    • Learn how to use pre-filled data from authentication tokens or administrator configuration in your templates.

  9. Automated Calculations with Computable Variables

    • Complete guide to computable variables: inline expressions, function-based computations, automatic dependency tracking, and conditional logic.

  10. Generating Appendices and Annexes

    • Learn how to create separate documents like appendices, annexes, or schedules that are generated alongside your main template using the {{ appendix() }} function.

  11. Grouped Interviews

    • Organize long interviews into groups and choose a presentation layout (paged, accordion, tabs, flat).

  12. Template Metadata Reference

    • Access session information, timestamps, template details, and AI assistant usage data from within your templates for audit trails, troubleshooting, and transparency.

  13. Linguistic Template Features

    • Features to help you correctly handle plurals, possessives, and complex list formatting in your templates that adapts to their users' answers (for both English and Swedish).

  14. Best Practices and Common Patterns

    • A collection of recommended approaches for building robust, maintainable, and easy-to-understand templates.

  15. Troubleshooting Guide

    • A symptom-based guide to solving the most common issues like "Why isn't my question showing up?".

  16. Customizing the Interview UI

    • Override individual HTML fragments or attach per-template CSS without touching the global app.

  17. Configuration file reference

    • A reference of all keys/settings that can be used in the various configuration files.

  18. Command-Line Tools for Authors

    • A reference for the validate and inspect tools that help you build and debug templates faster.

  19. Developer Toolkit (vibe-dev)

    • A suite of tools for troubleshooting the VIBE system, performing code management tasks like file concatenation, and directly manipulating .docx files

  20. Glossary

    • Simple, clear definitions of VIBE-specific terms like component, definition, and probe.

Extensions (Optional)

The following guides require the corresponding extension to be enabled:

  • Create drafting assistants
    • Integrate interactive Large Language Model (LLM) assistants into your templates, helping the user to draft complex, creative, or context-dependent sections.
  • Interactive assistant tutorial
    • Hands-on tutorial for building assistant-driven templates.
  • Document Review
    • Build review templates that evaluate existing documents against requirements.

Developer Resources

The following documentation is intended for developers, system administrators, and AI agents working on VIBE system development:

  • Developer Toolkit (vibe-dev)
    • Comprehensive debugging and utility tools for VIBE system development, testing, and troubleshooting. Includes advanced debugging commands, code management utilities, and structured workflows for AI development assistants.