Foundry is the architectural intelligence layer of Software Factory that transforms product requirements into clear, actionable technical blueprints. It ensures that product intent, system design, and implemented code stay aligned over time.
Blueprints are human-readable technical specification documents that serve as the definitive source of truth for how a system should be built. They translate product requirements into precise engineering guidance while remaining synchronized with real implementation.
Foundry organizes blueprints into three complementary types:
Foundations capture project-wide technical context that applies across all features. This includes architectural principles, technology stack decisions, security requirements, standards, and deployment conventions. Any decision that should be consistent across multiple features belongs in a Foundation blueprint.
System Diagrams provide visual representations of architecture and data flow using standardized diagrams such as system architecture diagrams, ERDs, and flow diagrams. Each System Diagram is a focused, single-diagram blueprint that illustrates how major components and services interact.
Feature Blueprints translate individual product features (extracted from the PRD) into detailed technical plans. They define APIs, UI behavior, data models, and testing requirements for a feature. Feature Blueprints are tightly linked to the feature hierarchy in Refinery—renaming a blueprint renames the underlying feature, and parent features automatically receive an overview blueprint summarizing their children.
Together, these blueprints form a connected technical narrative that spans high-level architecture down to feature-level implementation details.
When initializing a new project in Foundry, you must select a template. Templates define the structure of your engineering documentation, including which Foundations, System Diagrams, and Feature Blueprint outlines will be created.
You can choose from:
Templates may also include pre-written content and agent instructions that guide how the Foundry Agent assists with each blueprint.
Once the project is initialized, your Foundation blueprints are pre-populated based on the selected template. Review and refine these to reflect your project’s core architectural decisions, shared technologies, and standards.
Focus on:
Avoid feature-specific details here—those belong in Feature Blueprints.
Feature Blueprints are created automatically for each feature extracted from the PRD. Open a feature blueprint and complete its sections following the provided outline.
Start by validating the synthesized requirements, then describe:
For parent features, Foundry provides an overview blueprint that summarizes the underlying child features and their interactions.
The Foundry Agent can propose edits to any blueprint by generating structured, reviewable suggestions. These appear as color-coded diffs in the document editor and can be accepted or rejected by users with the appropriate permissions.
The agent has contextual awareness across:
This allows it to answer questions, generate accurate content, and detect inconsistencies.
The agent can:
Foundry continuously analyzes changes in the requirements and codebase to detect drift from existing blueprints. When discrepancies are found, the system flags the affected blueprints and surfaces alerts in the agent panel.
Alerts and Resolution
Alerts notify you when:
Engaging with an alert launches a guided, human-in-the-loop workflow where the agent explains the issue, suggests updates, and helps you bring everything back into alignment.
Agent struggling with long context? → Select only the relevant sections and restart the chat for better results.
A section fails to update from codebase? → Just ask the agent to search the code and compare its findings to the blueprint you are working on.
Ready to turn specs into tasks? Learn about Planner →