[Feature request]: A pattern that suggests what fabric pattern/command to use

[kevnk]

What do you need?

As a newbie to this, I basically only use extract_wisdom, but I know there's got to be more.

I'd love to run something like fabric suggest "I have a youtube video that I just want to get the main how-to steps out of it"

I would imagine the output being either:

1. Here are some commands you could run yt "YOUR VIDEO" | some_command (maybe it shows and explains multiple options OR maybe it just says, "I got you, paste in the video URL and I'll run this command: some_command")
2. No command is found and so it runs create_pattern for you (bonus: if it prompts you to save this somewhere and copy it into the patterns directory. Double bonus: if it does that and then runs it!)

I'm thinking the fabric suggest command may dynamically cache some version of create_summary and/or explain_docs loop through all the patterns as context for suggesting the right command.

Or maybe if you really wanted to get fancy, you could set up a vector database for all the fabric commands to be able to search it better with real language without pinging your model. (This is new stuff to me and I'm not sure where I would start)

BOTTOM LINE: I want to use fabric more, but I don't want to spend time reading through all the system.md to guess what it's going to do.

[kevnk]

Running this now...

"I want a pattern that suggests what fabric pattern (https://github.com/danielmiessler/fabric/) I should use. The input would be what the user is looking for the pattern to do and the output would be a list of suggested fabric cli commands what you could run with an explaination of each. If there are no patterns that would seem relevant, then it could suggest `create_pattern` to create a new one and give instructions on storing/coping the pattern accordingly to get it working correctly. There should be a context.md file included in this pattern too that has a summary of all the docs and a summary of each of the commands" | fabric -sp create_pattern

[xeniode]

Any luck with generating a pattern to do this? I would be interested in such a feature. Also a noob. :)

[kevnk]

Any luck with generating a pattern to do this? I would be interested in such a feature. Also a noob. :)

Actually, we pull requested in the suggest_pattern command a couple of days ago. But it won't exactly work without some tweaking...

1. after installing fabric locally (and maybe fabric --update if you've already installed it), you'll find all the patterns (at least on mac) in ~/.config/patterns
2. In the suggest_pattern directory, there's a user.md file with all the summaries of all the prompts.
3. I'm not sure how to utilize the user.md file, but if you copy those contents into the suggest_pattern/system.md file, then run something like echo "this is the thing I want to do with fabric" | fabric -sp suggest_pattern then it might work!

Let me know how it goes!

I'll keep this issue open until we figure out the "right" way to do it...

[xeniode]

Did you copy what is in user.md into system.md?

The system.md already has content in it, and with the way patterns are setup, I am not sure which section the user content would go into.

I tried using suggest_pattern as is:

echo "I want a pattern that will create dataview and templater scripts for me. Both dataview and templater are plugins for Obsidian notes." | fabric -p suggest_pattern

And the result made no sense really:

suggest_pattern_response.md

It seems to think I want a pattern for the actual scripting engines.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.

[atljoseph]

I think something like this should really be a sub command of the fabric cli. So people could use ‘fabric suggest “list all the patterns that might be good at parsing the result of a cURL call returning html markup from a web page, so it can then be piped to another pattern?”’. Then it would look up all the patterns and (based on the names or some basic description or data) might spit back a couple pattern names, or suggest the exact command to be ran in order to create a new pattern (in addition to suggesting an improved prompt for the creation thereof). @danielmiessler what are your thoughts on that? Thank you, and thank you for the golang migration (golang dev here).

[lkcampbell]

@kevnk New user of Fabric here as well. Love Fabric so far and I really love your great idea!

It has that fantastic self-referential feel that makes code design interesting and fun.

I even dug into the older code to look at your update-suggest-pattern-user.zsh script that does the automatic update of all the current patterns. Unfortunately, it looks like that script was lost here during the move over to Go: https://github.com/danielmiessler/fabric/commit/7399d844463d811feff78940373c8b9037276640#diff-e80eca8d828aa31eb257af242ffa750cdf14f6ec0911abd0c8cbd674f288089d

I do have a background in development but I do not yet know Go so it may be some time before I can contribute to this project. Regardless, I will be watching this specific issue because it is makes this project exponentially more powerful, especially the idea of creating and using new prompts on the fly (i.e. your double bonus scenario). And, in the meantime, I am hacking my local install with your script and ideas to make this feature, at the very least, a reality on my local machine.

Thanks for the contribution. It's a game changer.

[ksylvan]

I've updated the suggest_pattern command with all the latest patterns in the last few days. I believe this will do what you want.

[ksylvan]

fabric -p suggest_pattern -m claude-opus-4-1-20250805 'I have a youtube video that I just want to get the main how-to steps out of it'

FABRIC PATTERN RECOMMENDATION

Analysis of Your Request

You want to extract actionable how-to steps from a YouTube video. This is a clear extraction task focused on pulling out instructional content in a structured format.

Primary Recommendation

🎯 extract_instructions

This pattern is specifically designed for extracting step-by-step instructions from any content, including video transcripts.

Command:

fabric --pattern extract_instructions --youtube "VIDEO_URL"

Why this pattern:

• Specifically built to identify and extract procedural/instructional content
• Outputs clear, numbered steps in a logical sequence
• Filters out non-essential information to focus on actionable instructions

Alternative Options

📝 extract_wisdom

If the video contains broader insights beyond just steps, this pattern extracts key learnings, ideas, and actionable recommendations.

Command:

fabric --pattern extract_wisdom --youtube "VIDEO_URL"

📊 create_summary

For a more comprehensive overview that includes the main steps plus context around them.

Command:

fabric --pattern create_summary --youtube "VIDEO_URL"

Usage Tips

1. Direct YouTube Processing: Fabric can process YouTube videos directly using the --youtube flag followed by the video URL
2. Save for Later: Add --output steps.md to save the extracted steps to a file
3. Quick Reference: The extract_instructions pattern will give you clean, numbered steps without unnecessary commentary

Example Workflow

# Extract the how-to steps
fabric --pattern extract_instructions --youtube "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# Optional: Save to a file for reference
fabric --pattern extract_instructions --youtube "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --output tutorial_steps.md

The extract_instructions pattern will give you exactly what you're looking for - a clean list of actionable steps from the video content.