Built-in templates and defaults
Squadboard includes built-in starting points so a new project can become useful before you author every ceremony or team pattern by hand.
Review before deploying
Open Templates from the project navigation. Use Review to inspect a ceremony, team, or project template before you apply it to Spark. Applying a template should be an explicit deployment decision, not a blind import.
Built-in ceremonies
Built-in ceremonies are normal Squadboard ceremonies once deployed. They can run on issue entry, schedules, manual triggers, or project lifecycle events depending on their template configuration.
The built-in ceremony catalog is intentionally small in the pre-alpha. Use Review before applying one so you can see the exact YAML, prompts, approvers, and timeouts.
| Ceremony | Use it when | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Simple Review | You want the smallest useful loop for normal work. | Routes the card, runs the assigned agent, then asks a lead to approve the result. |
| Bug Fix | A card is a defect or regression. | Reproduces the bug, implements the fix, verifies the fix, then sends the result through lead approval. |
| RFC / Proposal | The next step is a decision, not code. | Drafts an RFC, gathers concerns, then requires each listed reviewer to approve. |
| Spike | The team needs research before implementation. | Routes the work, investigates within a time box, writes findings, then asks a lead to review those findings. |
| Pair-Programming Session | Two agents should build on the same context. | Routes the work, runs a first pass, runs a second pass that improves it, then asks for final review. |
| Sprint Planning | You are about to choose the next sprint objective and Ready backlog. | Collects candidate work, drafts a sprint plan, and asks the lead to commit the plan. |
| Sprint Retro | A sprint or focused work cycle has just ended. | Gathers evidence, identifies process themes, and accepts follow-up improvements. |
Squadboard also has an SDK-backed Scribe close-out path. It is not a YAML template in the ceremony catalog because it is wired to daemon and coordinator lifecycle events. Use it to summarize completed work, record health/report paths, capture follow-up directives, and clean up run metadata.
Built-in teams and projects
Team templates give you a consistent roster shape without hiding the details. After applying one, review agent names, roles, charters, skills, and tool access before moving cards into Ready.
Project templates are broader. They can bring in board structure, ceremonies, and integration defaults. The default software project includes Simple Review, Bug Fix, RFC, Sprint Planning, and Sprint Retro so a team can plan, execute, review, and improve without authoring ceremonies first. Review the payload first, apply it to the target .squad/ workspace, then adjust anything that is specific to your project.