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Most marketing creative is variants of work you’ve already done. New SKU launches use the same hero-shot workflow. Each new campaign follows the same brand-anchor → style-analysis → output structure. UGC ads for every product use the same character-sheet → clip → stitch flow. Setting up these workflows once and reusing them is the difference between “Melius is faster than the old way” and “Melius is 10x faster than the old way.” This page covers the mechanics for making canvases reusable.

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Duplicate a canvas

The simplest pattern. You’ve built out a workflow on one canvas, it works, you want to run the same workflow for a different input (next product, next region, next campaign).
1

From the project view, right-click the source canvas

Hit Duplicate. A copy appears in the same project.
2

Rename the copy

Name it after whatever variant it’ll handle — “Spring email banners — SKU 2” or “Localization batch 1”.
3

Open the duplicate

Same nodes, same connections, same prompts — fully populated, ready to swap inputs.
4

Swap the source inputs

The reference images, the PDP URL, the product pack shot — replace each with the new variant’s equivalents. The downstream generations re-run automatically with the new context.
For 20–50 variants, this is faster than asking the agent to do it via chat — there’s no ambiguity, no re-explaining what you want, no review.

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Use the Upload node for input-swapping

If you’ve built a workflow where everything downstream depends on one source image, the Upload node turns that into a clean swap point.
1

Build your workflow with an Upload node as the entry point

Right-click → New upload node. Connect it to whatever the workflow consumes the image for (image-to-image input, style analysis reference, product pack shot).
2

Upload your first image

The workflow runs.
3

When you want a new variant, just replace the upload

Select the Upload node and press Cmd+R on Mac or Ctrl+R on Windows/Linux, or click Upload new version in its toolbar. Choose the replacement file to add a new version to the same node. Every downstream node re-runs with the new input.
This is the cleanest pattern for “same workflow, different SKU.” You’re not duplicating the canvas; you’re feeding the same workflow new inputs.

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Build a project-level template canvas

For workflows you’ll use across many campaigns — your standard “static ad batch” build, your “UGC video” build, your “product photography” build — keep a clean template canvas in each project. The template canvas has:
  • The brand anchor as a text node, pre-populated
  • Empty Upload nodes for the inputs that change per campaign
  • The workflow nodes wired up with prompts and model choices
  • A short text annotation at the top explaining what the template is for
When you start a new campaign, duplicate the template canvas, fill in the inputs, run. We don’t currently have a “Make this canvas a template” button (it’s on the roadmap). Until then, the duplicate-and-swap pattern serves the same function — the canvas just sits there, named “Template — static ads,” ready to copy.

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Use templates / presets (the built-in ones)

Melius ships with a set of presets that wrap common workflows into one drop-in node group. Useful ones:
  • Image Style Analysis — turns a moodboard into a usable style description. See Static ads from a reference style.
  • Product Swapper — pre-configured product-into-scene workflow. See Product photography & swaps.
  • Image -> Boomerang — turns a static image into a short looping animation, useful for Reels and Stories.
Open Explore to browse them at app.melius.com/explore/recommended. Templates sit in the same grid as the looks Melius publishes. Use the search field to find one by name, and Favorites beside History to save one for your team and come back to it. On your first visit, a four-slide introduction explains how templates work. Choose Continue to advance, then Browse templates to enter Explore, or close it at any point. Completing or closing it is remembered for your account in that browser. Click a card to view its details and example inputs and outputs. Choose Try template to open its run screen, add your inputs or use the examples, and review the credit cost before generating. Each time you open a template in Explore, its preview shows the template’s example, not your most recent generation. A new result appears while the dialog stays open; previous results remain in History. Share a template with the link button in the top right of its dialog, which copies the template’s URL. Public template links use the template’s preview image or saved video frame in apps that show link previews. Team-only templates keep a generic Melius preview, and sharing a link does not change who can access the template. A run that fails shows the reason in place of its output, along with how many credits it charged and how many were refunded. Melius deletes the canvas the run created, along with anything its earlier steps generated, and keeps your inputs in the form so you can generate again. History on the run screen keeps the runs that produced an output, with any credits refunded for steps that failed. You can leave the run screen while a run generates. The History button in Explore’s header counts your runs still generating, a notification tells you when each one is ready, and the button counts the new results until you open it. A run of yours that couldn’t be made stays in History with the reason in place of its image, and any credits it charged are refunded. Your team’s tab lists finished results only. You can use these as starting points, then customize them for your specific use case. Once customized, the workflow is reusable across canvases via duplicate-and-swap.

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Use Claude (MCP) to spin up canvases programmatically

For the highest-volume workflows — daily/weekly variant batches, scheduled production runs — the MCP path is the right answer. Instead of duplicating a canvas by hand, you brief Claude with a standing instruction:
Now any time you tell Claude “new product launch for [SKU]” with the product reference attached, it builds the whole canvas to spec — no manual setup, no template-hunting. See Drive Melius from Claude.

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Multiplayer and shared canvases

Repeatable workflows often live inside a team, not in one person’s head. A few practices that help:
  • Naming convention. “Template — [workflow name]” for templates, “[Campaign name] — [variant set]” for active work, “Archive — [date]” for completed campaigns. Consistent names make it easier for teammates to find the right canvas.
  • Sticky notes for documentation. Drop sticky notes on a template canvas explaining what each section does. Press N (or right-click) to add one. Future you, and your teammates, will thank you.
  • Comments for handoffs. When you finish a draft and want a designer to review, drop a comment with C and @mention them. They get notified, can reply on the canvas, and resolve the thread when done.
  • One project per client / brand. Don’t mix clients in one project. The MCP path, in particular, works best when each project maps to one brand.

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Common pitfalls

  • Rebuilding the same workflow from scratch every time. If you’ve done this twice, save the canvas as a template and copy it on the third pass.
  • Templates that include real campaign content. A template canvas should have placeholders, not the last campaign’s specific images. Strip the campaign-specific stuff before parking the canvas as a template.
  • Skipping the naming convention. A project with 40 canvases all named “Untitled” is unsearchable. Name everything.
  • Not putting the brand anchor in the template. If every workflow starts by re-pasting the brand anchor, you didn’t bake it into the template. Bake it in.
Last modified on October 9, 2026