Quickstart

This guide walks you through your first Software Factory workflow, from creating a project to implementing your first work order.

Step 1: Create / Join an Organization

An Organization is a private workspace where teams collaborate across one or more projects. During the sign-up flow, a new user can create a new organization or join an existing one given an invitation from the organization admin.

After signing in, click Start New Project and enter a project name
Once created, Software Factory opens the Project Overview dashboard

Step 2: Create Your First Project

A Project captures all of the knowledge and documentation that defines the intent of the software and guides users from requirements gathering to software delivery.

After signing in, click Start New Project and enter a project name
Once created, Software Factory opens the Project Overview dashboard

Step 3 (Optional): Connect Your Repository

Connecting a codebase to a project allows Software Factory agents to index and read the code, which facilitates writing of blueprints, work orders and keeping all documentation in sync with the codebase after a release.

If you have a Github repository with existing code that you would like to bring into Software Factory, navigate to Integrations
Click Install Github App and you’ll be redirected to GitHub to authorize the 8090 Software Factory GitHub App
After authorization, you will be brought back to Software Factory to enter your repository URL and press Authorize
You should see a confirmation that the integration was created successfully and that the indexing is in progress

Step 4 (Optional): Upload Supporting Artifacts

Artifacts are external files that give Software Factory agents additional context while generating requirements, blueprints, and work orders.

If you have supporting documents that provide context for your project, navigate to Artifacts
Upload any artifacts that will help the Software Factory agents to build out your project

Step 5: Define Your Product Requirements

The Requirements module manages a set of documents that capture the intent of the product. Product Overview documents capture the motivation and executive summary for the product while Feature Requirements documents capture the feature-level requirements.

Navigate to Requirements using the top-left module selector
Engage with the Getting Started alert in the agent chat panel to collaborate with the agent to fill in the Product Overview documents and begin creating Feature Requirements documents
The agent will ask you if you have an existing project that should be used to initialize the requirements documents or if you would like to start fresh

Step 6: Create Technical Blueprints

The Blueprints module houses a set of Blueprints, which define the core architectural designs and decisions for the implementation of the product. Foundation Blueprints capture the patterns that are shared across all features, while Feature Blueprints capture the feature-specific architectural details.

Navigate to Blueprints using the module selector
To start, select a template that provides the general scaffolding of your blueprints. This initializes a set of blueprints for Foundations, System Diagrams, and Feature-Specific Blueprints with the outline templates that you've configured.
It is recommended to write out some of the core technology decisions into the Foundation blueprints with decisions such as the desired technology stacks and general patterns that apply across all blueprints.
Next, pick one feature blueprints and work with the Blueprints Agent to define the technical specifications for a feature. The Quick Q&A action guides you through key decisions step by step.

Step 7: Generate Work Orders

The Work Orders module coordinates the work required to build the product. Work Orders are created based on the requirements and blueprints created upstream and packed into a context-rich prompt that can be shared with coding agents and developers to execute.

Navigate to Work Orders using the module selector
Click Extract Work Orders in the agent chat panel to auto-generate Work Orders from your Blueprints and Requirements
Review the resulting work orders, assign them to yourself and sequence them into phases

Step 8: Connect to a Coding Agent via MCP

Work Orders integrates with local development environments through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This enables coding agents like Cursor or Claude Code to pull Work Order details and update statuses directly from the IDE. The MCP connection uses an API key that is scoped to a specific project and user.

In Work Orders, follow the popup instructions to connect your coding agent to Software Factory via MCP
Tell your coding agent to get the next work order from Software Factory
Monitor the coding agent as it begins to execute your work order
When the agent is done, it will mark the work order as "In Review" in Work Orders

Next Steps

Congratulations on completing your first work order. This is a simple forward pass to translate requirements to code through Software Factory, but there is so much more to explore. Here are some recommended flows to continue building your application:

Complete more work orders for the blueprints that you’ve written
Once you've completed a phase, push your code to the branch that you’ve indexed. The Blueprints agent will check for drift between your blueprints and the code and guide you to address discrepancies
Create more features in Requirements, write blueprints for them and extract more work orders
If requirements change, update your PRD and flow the changes downstream through the feature nodes, blueprints and work orders
After you've deployed the first version of your product, consider setting up the feedback collection mechanism in Validator