# Checklist templates (https://docs.treema.ai/en/docs/tasks/checklists)

Reusable checklists your team applies to tasks — building one, duplicating it, and keeping it honest.

Some work is really a list of small things: turning over a room, opening the pool, closing the
kitchen. A **checklist template** is that list, written once, and given to a task whenever the work
comes round.

Templates live on the Tasks page, under the **Templates** tab on its **Checklist templates**
sub-tab. They belong to the workspace, so every property can use the same ones. The other sub-tab
holds [task templates](https://docs.treema.ai/en/docs/tasks/templates/), which are whole tasks rather than lists.

![Screenshot: tasks/checklists](https://docs.treema.ai/screenshots/en/tasks/checklists.png)

1. Checklist templates and Task templates — the two halves of the Templates tab
2. One card per template, with how big it is and how often it gets used

Each card shows what the template contains — **3 categories · 14 items** — and how much use it
gets: **Used 12 times**, with the date it was last used, or **Never used** for one nobody has
applied yet. That second line is worth reading occasionally: a template nobody uses is either wrong
or forgotten.

## Building one [#building-one]

![Screenshot: tasks/checklist-editor](https://docs.treema.ai/screenshots/en/tasks/checklist-editor.png)

1. The name, the categories, and the items inside them

**Create checklist** opens the editor, and a template is two levels deep:

* **Checklist name** — what this list is, e.g. "Room turnover checklist".
* **Categories** — the sections of the work: `Bathroom`, `Bedroom`, `Minibar`. Add them with **Add
  category**.
* **Items** — the actual checks inside a category, added with **Add item**.

Every item has a **Default state**, and this is the setting worth thinking about:

| Default state         | The item starts as                 |
| --------------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| **No default**        | Unmarked — somebody has to decide. |
| **Default: done**     | Already ticked.                    |
| **Default: not done** | Already marked as not done.        |

<Callout type="warning" title="Default: done turns a check into a formality">
  An item that starts ticked is one nobody has to look at. That's fine for a step which is
  genuinely automatic, and quietly corrosive everywhere else — the list still comes back complete
  when the work wasn't done. For anything you actually want confirmed, leave it at **No default**.
</Callout>

**Save checklist** stores it. A template needs a name and at least one item with a name before it
can be saved.

## Changing a template later [#changing-a-template-later]

Open it from the list and edit it the same way. Two buttons sit at the top:

* **Duplicate** — copies the whole template and opens the copy, which is how you make a variant
  ("Room turnover — suites") without endangering the original.
* **Delete** — removes the template, after a confirmation naming it.

Editing a template changes what future tasks get. Checklists already sitting on tasks are not
rewritten — the room that was cleaned yesterday keeps the list that was actually used, which is what
makes a completed checklist evidence rather than a guess.

<Callout title="Duplicate before you reshape">
  If a template is in daily use and you want to try a different structure, duplicate it and change
  the copy. The original keeps producing consistent results while you work out whether the new
  version is better.
</Callout>

## Who can do what [#who-can-do-what]

Anyone with access to tasks can see the templates and apply one to a task. Creating, editing,
duplicating and deleting them needs the **Manages checklist templates** permission. Somebody without access at all is told so plainly:
"You don't have access to checklists."

## Next [#next]

* [Checklists on a task](https://docs.treema.ai/en/docs/tasks/checklists/in-task/) — what the person doing the work actually sees.