Editing and templates

Open the editor from a Palette pencil action, a Library row, or New prompt.

Draft lifecycle

A new prompt is an in-memory draft:

• the title starts empty;
• the body starts empty;
• the project is pre-filled only when creation starts inside a project;
• canceling or pressing Escape discards it;
• the vault is not changed until Save.

On first save, onQ creates a 26-character ULID and uses Untitled when the trimmed title is empty.

Editable fields

Field	Stored as	Notes
Title	YAML title	Included in search
Project path	YAML folder	Logical slash-separated path
Tags	YAML tags	Included in search and Library tag views
Favorite	YAML favorite	Adds Library view and small search bonus
Body	Markdown after frontmatter	Included in search while unlocked
Locked state	YAML locked	Managed by the lock action

Created and updated timestamps are managed by onQ.

Edit and preview

The body editor uses a line-numbered textarea. The Preview tab shows a line-preserving read-only view. It does not currently render full Markdown syntax into rich HTML.

Markdown remains the storage format, so external tools can render the file normally.

Save behavior

Saving:

1. creates the prompt on first save;
2. normalizes the title fallback and project path;
3. writes YAML frontmatter and body atomically through a temporary file;
4. writes a body snapshot under .onq/history/;
5. prunes snapshots older than the configured retention;
6. updates sparse search data;
7. updates the semantic embedding when the local model is loaded.

The editor closes after a successful save and Library refreshes.

Copy behavior

The editor Copy action copies the body exactly as stored.

Selecting a prompt's main Palette row also copies its body. The Palette copy path additionally resolves template variables. If Automatically minimize after clicking search result is enabled, onQ hides to the tray after the copy succeeds.

Templates

Use double braces in a body:

Write a {{tone}} response for {{audience|technical readers}}.

Supported forms:

{{name}}
{{name|default value}}

When copied from the Palette:

1. fields are discovered in first-appearance order;
2. duplicate field names are asked once;
3. a dialog asks for each value;
4. a default pre-fills the answer when present;
5. canceling any field cancels the entire copy;
6. values are substituted only in the clipboard result.

The stored body is not changed.

Without a supplied value, the renderer uses the default or an empty string. Whitespace around field names and defaults is trimmed. Only the first | separates the name from its default.

Escape literal braces with backslashes:

\{\{not a variable\}\}

This renders as {{not a variable}}.

INFO

Template substitution happens only when copying from the Palette. The editor Copy action copies the raw body, including placeholders.

History

Each save writes a body snapshot under:

.onq/history/<prompt-id>/<RFC3339 timestamp>.md

Open an existing prompt and select History to list snapshots. Restore replaces the current body with the selected snapshot and writes the restored state back through the normal vault path.

History retention defaults to 30 days and accepts 0 through 3650 days in Settings > Vault. A value of 0 removes older snapshots during subsequent writes.

History stores bodies, not complete frontmatter versions.

Prompt locks

The lock action is available only after a draft has been saved.

Locking:

1. saves the current plaintext state;
2. creates a fresh 256-bit per-prompt key;
3. encrypts the body with AES-256-GCM;
4. writes .onq/locked/<prompt-id>.enc;
5. stores the body key in the OS keychain;
6. clears the body from the Markdown file;
7. marks locked: true.

The editor closes so every surface reloads the sealed state.

While locked:

• the body is read-only and hidden;
• editor and Palette copy are blocked;
• metadata remains visible;
• history restore is disabled.

Unlocking reads the per-prompt key from the OS keychain, restores the body to the Markdown file, removes the envelope, and deletes the per-prompt keychain entry.

Prompt locks depend on the keychain entry. They do not use the vault master password or 24-word vault recovery phrase. Include .onq/locked/ in backups, but understand that the per-prompt key itself is held outside the vault.

Delete behavior

Delete requires confirmation and then removes the current prompt. onQ has no trash or undo command. Export backups before bulk cleanup.