Document starters

What this accomplishes

The eighteen document starters in Miton’s Writer: blog post, meeting notes, research brief, board update, project retrospective, speech notes, newsletter, RFC, research summary, product spec, changelog, tutorial, resume, short story, cover letter, essay, letter and manuscript. The fork flow and custom starters.

A document starter is a pre-built outline, draft, and completion checklist for a common document type. The starter is a template the user can fork into the user’s project; the starter saves the user the work of building the document from scratch.

This guide covers document starters. See the Writer overview for the full list; the export pipeline is in export to PDF and DOCX; project memory is explained in the memory overview.

Current availability

This page documents behaviour verified in Miton development builds. Miton is still pre-release and is not publicly downloadable; invited beta users will receive a signed desktop build with automatic updates.

Before you start

• A Miton development build, an active project and Writer open.
• A connected model; keep the source material or existing document in the same project.

The eighteen starters

Miton ships with eighteen document starters:

• Blog post. A long-form blog post template with hook, intro, three to five sections, conclusion, meta description. The outline is “Hook → Intro → Section 1 → Section 2 → Section 3 → Conclusion → Meta description”.
• Meeting notes. A meeting notes template with attendees, agenda, decisions, action items, follow-ups. The outline is “Attendees → Agenda → Notes → Decisions → Action items → Follow-ups”.
• Research brief. A research brief template with topic, outline, draft, citation map. The outline is “Topic → Background → Findings → Implications → Open questions → Citations”.
• Board update. A board update template with executive summary, key metrics, risks, decisions needed. The outline is “Executive summary → Key metrics → Risks → Decisions needed → Next steps”.
• Project retrospective. A retrospective template with what went well, what went wrong, what to do differently. The outline is “What went well → What went wrong → What to do differently → Action items”.
• Speech notes. A speech notes template with opening, three points, closing. The outline is “Opening → Point 1 → Point 2 → Point 3 → Closing”.
• Newsletter. A newsletter template with intro, three to five items, outro. The outline is “Intro → Item 1 → Item 2 → Item 3 → Outro”.
• RFC. A request-for-comments template with summary, motivation, design, drawbacks, alternatives. The outline is “Summary → Motivation → Design → Drawbacks → Alternatives → Open questions”.
• Research summary. A research summary template with findings, methodology, limitations, next steps. The outline is “Findings → Methodology → Limitations → Next steps”.
• Product spec. A product spec template with problem, goals, non-goals, design, metrics. The outline is “Problem → Goals → Non-goals → Design → Metrics → Risks”.
• Changelog. A changelog template with added, changed, deprecated, removed, fixed, security. The outline is “Added → Changed → Deprecated → Removed → Fixed → Security”.
• Tutorial. A tutorial template with prerequisites, steps, troubleshooting, next steps. The outline is “Prerequisites → Step 1 → Step 2 → Step 3 → Troubleshooting → Next steps”.
• Resume. A resume template with summary, experience, education, skills. The outline is “Summary → Experience → Education → Skills → Projects”.
• Short story. A short story template with setting, characters, conflict, resolution. The outline is “Setting → Characters → Conflict → Resolution”.
• Cover letter. A cover letter template with intro, body, closing. The outline is “Intro → Body → Closing”.
• Essay. An essay template with thesis, body, conclusion. The outline is “Thesis → Body → Conclusion”.
• Letter. A letter template with sender, recipient, date, body, signature. The outline is “Sender → Recipient → Date → Body → Signature”.
• Manuscript. A long-form book structure with a book bible, chapter outline and three draft chapter files. Novel, book, chapter and manuscript requests route here automatically; the document library keeps chapters separate without losing project context.

Most starters ship with an outline, a draft and a completion checklist. Manuscript instead creates the multi-file structure long-form work needs: book bible, outline and chapter drafts.

The fork flow

The user opens the document menu; the user picks “New from starter”; the user picks a starter; the user clicks “Fork”. The starter is forked into the user’s project; the user is in a new document with the starter’s outline, draft, and checklist.

The user can edit the document; the user’s edits are saved automatically. The user can also use the agent to help with the document; the agent has access to the document’s content and the user’s convention memory.

The fork is irreversible. The starter is a template; the fork is a copy. The user can delete the fork; the user can also delete the starter from the document menu (the user cannot delete a built-in starter, but the user can delete a custom starter).

The custom starter

The user can create a custom starter. A custom starter is a YAML file in .miton/starters/<name>.yaml that specifies:

• Name — the starter’s name (used in the starter picker).
• Description — the starter’s purpose (shown in the starter picker).
• Outline — the starter’s outline (a list of section headings).
• Draft — the starter’s draft (a free-text string).
• Checklist — the starter’s checklist (a list of items).

The user can also define a custom starter in the shared starter registry (the @miton/starters registry). The shared starters are available across all projects the user works on.

The custom starter is per project. The user can export the custom starter to a JSON file; the user can import the custom starter from a JSON file. The export and import are useful for sharing a custom starter across projects.

The completion checklist

The completion checklist is a list of common things the user might forget. The checklist is per starter; the checklist is shown in the right side of the editor. The user can check an item when the user has completed it; the checklist updates in real time.

The completion checklist is a property of the starter, not a property of the document. The user can also add items to the checklist in the current document; the items are preserved for the document; the items are not added to the starter.

The completion checklist is the right shape for the user to verify the document is complete. The user can use the checklist to catch the common things the user might forget (e.g. “add a meta description” for a blog post, “add a call to action” for a newsletter).

What the document starters do not cover

The document starters do not cover:

• Live collaboration on the starter — the starter is per project; the user can share a custom starter via the shared registry, but the starter is not a real-time-collaborative document.
• Starter versioning — the starter is a single version; the user can update a custom starter, but the user cannot have multiple versions of the same starter.
• Starter dependencies — the starter is a standalone template; the starter does not depend on other starters or on other documents.

The document starters focus on the common case (a single template, a single document). The less common cases are covered by the user’s existing tools.

What success looks like

The eighteen document starters are the right shape for the user to start a document. The user picks a starter; the user forks the starter; the user has an outline, a draft, and a checklist.

The completion checklist is the right shape for the user to verify the document is complete. The user checks the items as the user completes them; the user can add items to the checklist for the current document.

The custom starter is the right shape for the user to extend the starters. The user can define a custom starter; the user can share the custom starter via the shared registry.

Common failures and recovery

• Confirm the intended document and project are active.
• Keep the original text when reviewing a model-proposed change.
• Check the model connection and retry only the failed action, not the complete document.

Related next action

Return to the Writer overview to choose the next document task.