Placeholders

Placeholders let you turn a document into a reusable template. Mark a spot with {{NAME}} or [NAME], and Return will detect it, show a Fill placeholders pill in the editor, and let you generate a filled copy in one click - without touching the source.

Syntax

Two formats are recognized:

• {{CLIENT_NAME}} - Handlebars-style. Recommended for new templates because it matches Return’s Returns system (so the same template can be reused later by AI-powered Returns).
• [CLIENT_NAME] - square-bracket style. Useful when migrating templates from Microsoft Word, where this convention is common.

Both are equivalent. Names must be UPPERCASE letters, digits, and underscores, and start with a letter. That heuristic is what lets [link](https://...) and [see art. 5] keep behaving as ordinary markdown - only ALL-CAPS bracketed words are treated as placeholders.

You can mix both styles in one document; Return groups them by name so {{CLIENT}} and [CLIENT] in the same file count as a single field.

Type hints (optional)

Append :date to a name to render a date picker instead of a plain text input:

• {{DATE_SIGNED:date}} - renders a date picker

That’s the only hint with a dedicated input in v1. The parser accepts other lowercase suffixes (:money, :number, :choice) so existing templates won’t break when richer pickers land later, but today they fall back to a plain text input.

Without any hint, every placeholder is a plain text input.

Filling

When the document contains at least one placeholder, a small Fill placeholders pill appears in the editor’s bottom-right hover row. Click it (or press Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + P) to open the fill modal.

• Each unique placeholder shows once, with × N next to its name when it occurs more than once.
• Fill any subset of fields. Unfilled placeholders are kept in the output file in their original form - they’re not silently wiped to empty strings.
• The file name input accepts placeholder syntax too. A template named contract.md can produce Contract - Jane Doe.md if you type Contract - {{CLIENT_NAME}}.md and fill CLIENT_NAME: Jane Doe. The preview under the input shows the resolved name live.
• The output folder input defaults to the source’s folder; pick another from the workspace dropdown if you want.
• Save as chooses the output: Markdown (the default), PDF or HTML. A PDF or HTML file goes through the same renderer as File → Export; tick Also keep the Markdown file to get the editable copy too.
• From a CSV file fills the placeholders from a table instead, one new file per row. See Document Templates.

What happens on generate

Click Generate file (Generate PDF or Generate HTML for those formats). Return:

1. Reads the source text in memory (the source file is never modified).
2. Substitutes every filled placeholder, preserving the original {{}} or [] format at each occurrence.
3. Writes a new file to the chosen folder: Markdown, or the PDF or HTML you chose.
4. Opens the new file as a tab in the editor.

The new file is a new document: it does not keep the source’s id, so the source’s chat, memory and playbook decisions stay with the source.

If the target filename already exists, generation fails with an error - Return never overwrites an existing file. Rename the output and try again.

Empty placeholders

If you click generate while one or more placeholders are still blank, Return asks for confirmation: “N placeholders are empty. Generate the file anyway?”. Choosing Generate with empty produces a file with the blank placeholders left intact in their original syntax - you can come back to fill them later.

Best practices

• For new templates, prefer {{NAME}} over [NAME] - it composes with Returns later.
• For templates imported from Word, the bracket form keeps working out of the box; you don’t have to migrate.
• Code is not scanned. [NAME] or {{NAME}} inside a fenced code block, an indented code block, or inline backticks is left alone: it is neither highlighted, nor listed in the fill modal, nor substituted. A mermaid diagram’s C[VAT] stays a node label. If you need a placeholder in a code sample, keep it outside the code.

Limits

• Placeholders are filled in Markdown documents: a PDF or DOCX file can’t be the source yet (PDF can be the output).
• No nested or recursive placeholders. A filled value containing {{B}} is inserted literally; {{B}} is not re-expanded.
• AI-powered fill is planned; not available yet.