diff --git a/R/PipeOpDecode.R b/R/PipeOpDecode.R
index e1fa12fea..da3dcd5cf 100644
--- a/R/PipeOpDecode.R
+++ b/R/PipeOpDecode.R
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ PipeOpDecode = R6Class("PipeOpDecode",
         group_pattern = p_uty(custom_check = check_string, tags = c("train", "required")),
         treatment_encoding = p_lgl(tags = c("train", "required")),
         treatment_cutoff = p_dbl(default = 0, tags = "train", depends = quote(treatment_encoding == TRUE)),
-        ref_name = p_uty(custom_check = crate(function(x) check_string(x, min.chars = 1)), tags = "train", depends = quote(treatment_encoding == TRUE)),
+        ref_name = p_uty(default = "ref", custom_check = crate(function(x) check_string(x, min.chars = 1)), tags = "train", depends = quote(treatment_encoding == TRUE)),
         ties_method = p_fct(c("first", "last", "random"), tags = c("train", "required"))
       )
       ps$values = list(treatment_encoding = FALSE, group_pattern = "^([^.]+)\\.", ties_method = "random")