Answer templates, codes and gaps

Many emails of a product are the same email with a different name: a creator asks to make a video, a customer asks for a refund, a reviewer asks for a key. Answer templates let you write those answers once, in your own words, and have each new email answered from them with the right name, the details the email gives and, when you hand out keys or coupons, a code from a box you filled. The studio fills what it knows itself; the AI fills the rest from the email; you still read and send.

Templates belong to a project, so every mailbox of the project shares them. Making and changing them is done in the studio; the iPhone app, once it is out, uses them in answers.

Write a template

1. Open the project's settings (the sign beside New session) and, under Mailboxes of this project, click Templates.
2. Click Add template.
3. Give it a Name, for example "Creator wants to make a video".
4. Under Use it when, write one line for the AI saying what kind of email it answers. It is optional, and it helps the AI pick the right template.
5. Write the Text. Use the Insert buttons to put in tags: First name, Full name, Email address, Code and Ask the AI….
6. Click Save.

Tags are words in curly braces. The studio fills {first name}, {full name}, {email} and {code} itself. Anything else in braces, such as {their channel name}, is a question to the AI, which reads the email and gives back only the value. When it finds nothing, the place becomes a gap that you fill before the answer can go.

End the text with your own closing and name. An answer from a template goes with the template's closing and without the mailbox's signature, so it never carries two. If the last lines hold no closing, the editor says so quietly.

Codes to hand out

For a template with a {code} tag, open Codes and paste your licence keys or coupons, one a line (commas and spaces work too). Duplicates are dropped and counted. The editor shows how many are free, held and sent, and warns when few are left.

When a template answers an email, one free code is held for that email, so two emails never get the same one. It counts as sent only when the answer goes, with the person's name and address kept beside it. If the answer is replaced or deleted, the code goes back to the box. The tab Codes sent lists every code sent or waiting in an answer, searchable by code, name or address. No code is ever shown to a model: codes are masked in everything the AI reads.

How a template is used

When an email arrives and the mailbox may be read by AI, the AI is asked once whether one of your templates fits, and fills its blanks. If none fits, the email gets the usual suggested answer. The answer then says it came from your template and which one.

You can also choose by hand. Above the suggested answer, and in every conversation of a mailbox, the Template chooser puts a template into the box you write in. None (the AI's own answer) asks for a fresh answer instead. Choosing is your consent for the AI to read that one thread.

Gaps the AI can fill

A gap is drawn as a coloured part of the answer. Click it to type the missing words, take the part out, or press Write it with AI. The AI then looks for the fact in what it knows of the project: the email and the conversation, your notes and facts about the project, your earlier answers and templates, and a filtered copy of the project's files. It writes only the words of that gap, in the language of the answer. It never invents a price, a date, a code or a promise; when it finds nothing certain it says so and leaves the gap empty. Its words go in only when you press Put it in. Each gap is filled from its own box; there is no button that fills them all at once.

Deleting a template keeps the record of codes already sent, and its free codes go with it. Everything else about answering is in Reading, tagging and answering email, and how an answer waits before it leaves is in The mail outbox.

Small tips

Questions