This template's documentation is missing, inadequate, or does not accurately describe its functionality or the parameters in its code.(Reason: unclear whether this is for internal use by templates which generate SDs, on article pages as a freestanding template, or something else. Also unclear whether "the template" means this one, the one calling it, or the short description template on a page.) Please help to expand and improve it.
This template sometimes adds an automatically generated short description. If the automatic short description is not optimal, replace it by adding {{Short description}} at the top of the article.
Template:Template short description is used to create templated short description. It performs extra checks to avoid undesirable short descriptions from being added by templates and if the following conditions are satisfied it will add the first unnamed parameter as a short description:
The description is at or below a certain length (default 40 per WP:SDFORMAT, adjustable with |max_length= if determined necessary. It is often preferable to attempt shortening the descriptions if this is a major issue.)
If the template is an infobox it can also check if the infobox is in the lead. If no pattern is given this condition is ignored. It does not handle redirects.
Parameters
Parameter
Explanation
text
The short description text.
max_length
The number of characters the short description is allowed to be (non-inclusive).
infobox_pattern
A lua pattern matching the template name (such as "[Ii]nfobox [Ss]chool").
