A novel approach for generating and updating rules allows non-technical users to create and modify rules. A rules generation system includes a rules engineer interface, user interfaces and a rules generator. The rules engineer interface is an interface through which a rules engineer, such as rules engineer, may generate templates. Templates contain data that define rule "templates" that in turn specify a rule structure, rule elements that may be chosen by a user, and rule elements that may not be chosen by user. Templates may also define a set of choices, for example values, that user may choose for those rule elements. Templates may also be used to generate user interfaces. The user interfaces guide a user to create or edit rules.