Briefs & ideation

A brief is the shared context for a project: its topic, audience, purpose, target length, any constraints, the questions still open, and an optional thesis. Every later stage reads from it, so a clear brief makes the rest of the work sharper.

Writing the brief

On the Brief surface you can chat with a coach that asks interview questions and assembles a draft from your answers, or edit the brief yourself as a single document. The read view shows the brief formatted; switch it to Raw to see the underlying markdown. “Edit as a single document” opens a markdown editor with a formatting toolbar (bold, italic, headings, lists, links) and Ctrl/Cmd+B, +I, and +K shortcuts, so you can correct anything directly. Keep the ## section headings — each part feeds the coaching agents. Changes auto-save, so the brief stays yours to edit.

Ideation

Ideation is a coached conversation on a single document. The coach asks clarifying questions to help you develop that document’s thesis, then gathers what you said into a document-level brief. When it is ready, you can promote that into the project brief so the rest of the workflow builds on it.

Phases

A phase is one ideation conversation bound to a document. A document can have several — Phase 1, Phase 2, and so on — so you can explore different angles without losing an earlier thread. Use the tabs above the chat to switch between phases, and “New phase” to start a fresh one; double-click a tab or the pencil to rename it.

How a phase feeds the brief and the outline

• Emerging Brief → document brief — as you talk, the coach gathers brief details into the panel beside the chat. “Save to document brief” promotes that draft into the document’s brief; from there you can promote it into the project brief.
• Emerging Outline — a turn can also update the document’s working outline and record a version tagged with the phase it came from. If your draft moves ahead of what ideation last saw, a catch-up banner offers to bring the outline back in step.
• Cross-phase conflicts — when a sibling phase has changed the shared outline, the coach flags what that turn overturns so you notice the shift.

Closing and deleting a phase

Closing a phase hides it from the tabs but keeps it, along with the brief and outline history it contributed — you can restore it later. Deleting a phase moves it to a recoverable state for 30 days before it is removed for good; the outline versions it recorded stay in the document’s history.