Learn how to create and use reusable templates to maintain visual consistency and speed up diagram creation
Templates are reusable presets for nodes with predefined styles, colors, and icons. They help maintain visual consistency across your diagrams and dramatically speed up creation of complex architectures.
🎨 Think of templates like CSS classes: Define a style once, apply it to many elements. Change the template, and all nodes using it update automatically!
Create node presets with predefined styling
Apply templates to new or existing nodes instantly
Update multiple nodes by editing the template
Maintain consistent visual language across all diagrams
Templates are reusable node configurations that define the appearance and default properties of architectural components. They're like style presets that you can apply with a single click.
Default naming conventions or prefixes for consistency
Background and text colors that categorize components
Visual identifiers for quick recognition
Text sizing presets for hierarchy
Default documentation text templates
Templates are like CSS classes for architecture diagrams - define once, apply everywhere, update globally!
Create styled nodes with one click instead of manual styling
No need to manually style each node individually
Change hundreds of nodes by editing one template
Instantly identify component types by color and icon
Maintain clear visual hierarchy across diagrams
Enforce architectural patterns and conventions
Real-world impact:
Click "Templates" in the side navigation, then "New template"
Use Cmd/Ctrl + K and search for "Create template"
Template naming best practices:
One-click creation: Instead of creating a node, then selecting it, then styling it, then adding an icon... you just click the template! Everything is styled instantly.
Bulk styling made easy:
After applying a template, you can still customize individual nodes
Use templates for initial styling, then adjust specific nodes as needed
Customizing one node doesn't affect others using the same template
⚠️ Powerful feature alert: All nodes using this template will update automatically! This is great for consistency but be careful with heavily-used templates.
Nodes created from the template keep their styling even after template deletion. Deleting a template only removes the preset, not the nodes.
Recommended color scheme: 🔵 Blue: Backend services, APIs, microservices 🟢 Green: Databases, data stores, caches 🟠 Orange: External APIs, third-party services 🟣 Purple: Frontend applications, web/mobile apps 🔴 Red: Critical infrastructure, monitoring, alerts ⚫ Gray: Utilities, helpers, infrastructure components
Open command palette to create template
Open command palette to create template
Side navigation (left sidebar) - Opens the templates panel to view and manage all templates
Templates panel - Creates a new template with custom properties
Templates panel - Click to create a node using this template
Template card - Applies template styling to currently selected nodes
Template card - Opens template editor to modify properties
Template card - Removes template from panel (nodes keep styling)
You now know how to create reusable templates to build consistent, professional diagrams in a fraction of the time!
What you've mastered: ✅ Creating custom templates with colors, icons, and properties ✅ Using templates to create styled nodes instantly ✅ Applying templates to existing nodes (bulk styling) ✅ Editing templates to update all nodes at once ✅ Managing and organizing your template library ✅ Best practices for naming and color coding
Pro tips to remember:
Create cross-level connections with virtual node references
Connect diagrams to GitHub repositories and Figma designs
Master the basics of node creation in ArkT diagrams