Generating a plan

Generating a plan is the first thing that happens when you create a project. This page covers how it works and what to expect.

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Submitting an idea

From New project, type your idea in the input. There is no prompt template, no required structure, no character minimum. Archie infers what is missing. Examples that work:

• “A booking system for a small dental practice.”
• “A course platform where teachers upload lessons and students pay per course. Stripe for payments. Email notifications when a new lesson is published.”
• A few paragraphs describing your app in detail.

Click submit. Archie creates the project and starts generating.

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Improving your prompt

Before you submit, use the AI Assistant to refine what you typed. Click the wand icon next to the input to open Improve, Expand, and Condense.

• Improve — Rewrites your prompt to be more accurate and specific.
• Expand — Adds detail: user roles, features, screens, and data models inferred from your idea.
• Condense — Tightens a long or detailed prompt into a more direct version while keeping the key requirements.

For example, typing “A booking app for a hair salon” and clicking Improve turns it into a structured brief with user roles, features, and data models: Expand takes the same short prompt further, adding more complete detail across every section: Condense works the other way: paste in a long, detailed description and it distills it down to the essentials: Each option opens a preview with Insert and Retry buttons. Click Insert to replace your prompt with the generated version, or Retry to generate again. You can also type additional instructions below the preview to steer the result, or run another Improve, Expand, or Condense pass directly from the preview panel.

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Answering clarifying questions

Before drafting the plan, Archie may show A few quick questions — a short set of decisions it would otherwise have to guess. Each question explains why it matters and takes one of three forms: single-choice, multi-select, or a short free-text answer. You can answer some questions and leave others blank, then click Continue, or click Skip — decide for me to let Archie make every call. Skipped questions aren’t left silent — Archie states its assumption directly in the plan instead.

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What happens during generation

Generation usually completes in 30–60 seconds. While it runs:

• The plan page shows a waiting state with status updates
• The connection reconnects automatically if you close the tab and come back

When generation finishes, the plan page populates with all its sections (Overview, Modules, User types, System services, Integrations). Archie also picks a tech stack for the build behind the scenes — it is not part of the plan and is not shown or editable there.

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What you get

The first plan is a starting point, not a final answer. Expect:

• Modules that capture the major features in your idea
• User types inferred from the description (admin, customer, and so on)
• System services chosen based on what your app needs (auth, file storage)
• Integrations matched to features in your idea (Stripe if you mentioned payments)

If the first pass is wrong in places, that is normal. Editing is the next step.

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Reviewing clarifying questions later

Once the plan exists, a Clarifying Questions / Plan toggle appears at the top of the plan page. Switch to Clarifying Questions to see the same questions again — each one shows either the answer you picked or an Archie decided badge with the assumption Archie made for a skipped question. This view is read-only. To change an answer, edit the relevant plan section directly or ask the plan chat to apply the change.

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Re-generating

You can regenerate a plan section if it is significantly off. Use the regenerate dropdown in the section header. Regeneration costs credits — usually a small amount per section. For smaller changes, edit directly or use the plan chat.

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FAQ