Reference files

Reference files are the knowledge a Playbook works from: your voice, your offer, your watchlist, your house style. They're the difference between generic output and output that sounds like you and knows your business. Find account Reference files under Resources → Reference Files.

Two scopes

• Account references belong to your account. Upload once, and any of your Playbooks can point at them: your brand voice document serving every Playbook you own.
• Playbook references travel with one Playbook. They're the operator's knowledge layer for that service: publishing exposes the Service, not those files or the method. A Run can use the owner-provided knowledge without giving the customer direct access to its source files. A bare reference name resolves Playbook-first, so a Playbook's own file wins over an account file of the same name.

Placeholders: what good looks like

A template declares the references it needs, and copying it materialises each one as a placeholder file in your draft, ready to replace. Seed templates ship their placeholders with real example content: the Sales Email Drafter's offer.md placeholder shows the shape of a good offer document, and the Content Engine's content-voice.md shows a working voice document. So "replace this" comes with an example of what good looks like, not an empty file.

YAMO's setup checklist tracks every reference still on placeholder content, and marks missing files. Replace the examples and resolve the readiness items before running the Service.

How Plays use them

References are resolved into the run: a Play that the document points at offer.md reads your offer.md, this run, every run. The seed templates lean on this deliberately: rules like "Claims about the owner's offer come from the offer.md reference only" turn your reference file into the boundary of what the run is allowed to say.

You can use Replace file to copy an account file into one Service. That creates a Service-local copy; it does not change the account original or other Services that use it.

Keeping them current

Replacing a Reference file creates a new revision. New Runs capture the available current revision when they are created. A Run that already exists keeps its captured revision, including when it resumes. Replacing one Service-local copy does not update other copies or the original account file.

Where next

• What is a Reference file?: the definition, on its own page.
• Build: where references are attached to a Playbook and to its steps.
• Connectors: the other half of what a run is allowed to reach.