What does Repair do on a Tares project started from a template after I edited one of its parts by hand?

Tares marks a part you edit by hand as customized, and Repair resets that customized part back to the plan the template made. Until you run Repair, the project keeps your version on its next re-plan instead of overwriting it. A project you assembled by hand from existing objects has no plan, so Repair and customized do not apply to it.

How it works

A template is a ready-made setup. When you start a project from one, Tares plans the objects behind it, creates them, and remembers that plan. Three things follow from that plan.

• Editing marks a part customized. Change a source, trigger, agent or other part on its own page and Tares marks it customized. Nothing else about the part changes, and it stays an ordinary Tares object that other projects can use.
• A re-plan keeps your version. When you edit the project and save, it re-plans and applies only what changed. A customized part is not overwritten by that re-plan, so your hand edit survives.
• Repair goes back to the plan. Repair re-creates or resets one planned object. On a customized part it resets the part back to what the plan says. Repair works on template projects only.

A part that already existed with the same name in the Default project is adopted, not duplicated. A part with a planned name that another project made stops the template, and Tares names that project. A template reconfigures what it plans, so it never takes over another project’s part silently.

A project assembled with From existing objects works differently. Nothing is created and nothing is planned, so there is nothing to compare your edits against. You edit the objects on their own pages and the project shows them as they are.

Set it up

1. Open Projects → Create new, choose Start from a template, pick a template card and click Set up. Answer the few questions the setup page asks, then click Start. Tares creates the objects the last step lists. See Projects for the template list.
2. Open one of the project’s parts on its own page and change it by hand. Tares marks that part customized.
3. Edit the project and save when you want to change its parameters. The project re-plans and applies only what changed, and your customized part keeps your version.
4. When you want the original back, run Repair for that part. It resets the customized part to the plan.
5. For a hand-assembled project, skip Repair. Edit the objects on their own pages instead.

You can also declare a template project in catalog YAML, so a seed catalog creates it on first boot with tares up. The template name and parameters in this block are the plan that Repair resets a part back to:

projects:
  - template: ai_sre_demo
    name: AI SRE demo
    params:
      prometheus_url: http://localhost:9090
      api_server_url: http://localhost:8080
      container: tares-demo-api-server
  - template: custom
    name: checkout watch
    objects:
      - { kind: source, name: checkout_logs }
      - { kind: trigger, name: checkout_errors }
      - { kind: agent, name: incident-first-look }

The first entry is a template project, so it has a plan, and a hand edit to one of its parts is marked customized. The second entry, with template: custom, lists existing objects. It is the hand-assembled kind, with no plan behind it. To see how the AI SRE demo is built, read AI SRE.

What you get

• Your hand edits are safe. A re-plan of a template project does not undo a part you customized.
• One way back. Repair returns a single customized part to the plan without touching the rest of the project.
• Clear boundaries. Template projects have a plan, so Repair and customized apply. Hand-assembled projects have none, so they never show customized parts and Repair is not offered for them.
• Shared parts stay ordinary. The part of project badge names the project that made a part, but it never locks the part, and any other project can still use it. More on makers and templates is on the Projects page.

When something else fits

• If you want a project with no plan to compare against, start it from From existing objects and edit each object on its own page.
• If you want to describe the goal and have Tares plan the parts for you, use guided setup instead of a template. It shows the plan before anything runs.

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