This module provides additional feautres to the silverstripe-green module.
composer require unclecheese/silverstripe-green-addons
You can parse your index.ss template for variables and auto-create content using a task:
$ framework/sake dev/tasks/GreenTemplateParserTask module=my-design-module
This task looks at both variables and blocks defined in your template, converts them into the appropriate structure in JSON or YAML, and assigns placeholder content to them.
This feature is also available when editing YAML in the CMS. Just click (Load from template) above the code editor, and it will populate the editor automatically.