Turning a brief into a plan

If you've been sent a brief, Waymarq can read it and propose a plan. You then edit it like anything else — it's a starting point, not an authority.

Requires AI to be configured. See Turning on AI.

You don't need a spec document

Plenty of projects start as an idea rather than a document. On the project's Files page — and in the setup wizard — there's a "No spec document? Describe it instead" box. Write what you're building in your own words: what it's for, who it's for, and anything you already know.

Waymarq saves that text as the project's spec, so it behaves exactly like an uploaded brief from then on — AI planning reads it, clarifying questions work against it, and the "spec uploaded" prompt on the overview is satisfied.

Rewriting it later doesn't overwrite anything: each save is kept as a new version, so you can see how the description evolved.

Or upload a plan you already have

If you have already built a schedule — a spreadsheet Gantt, a task list, an exported plan — upload that instead. Drop an .xlsx, .xls or .csv into the same box as a brief.

Waymarq reads it as a plan rather than as a brief, and the difference matters: your sections become phases, your rows become tasks, and your dates stay as you set them. It is not asked to invent a plan from your file, because you already made one — inventing over the top would give you different task names, different dates, and your actual schedule gone.

Dates drawn as shaded cells are read too. If your chart has the dates across the top and the schedule coloured in underneath — rather than typed into Start and End columns — Waymarq reads the bars and works out the dates from them. Bars outlined with borders, or merged into one block per row, are read the same way, and so are headings written as "07/09", "7 Sept", "Sep", "Week 3", or day numbers under a month band. If your columns leave the year out, it's taken from the project's start date rather than guessed.

A row with no bar comes in without dates rather than being given a guess, and if the chart is laid out in a way Waymarq can't follow — tasks across the top and dates down the side, for instance — it says so and keeps the file as a document instead of inventing a schedule.

You see what was found before anything is created, and can rename sections, remove rows or throw the whole thing out. The dates you set are pinned, so rescheduling works around them rather than moving them back. If anything came in without dates, it says so above the list.

Two things worth knowing:

Not every spreadsheet is a plan. A requirements list has no dates; a timesheet records work already done. Waymarq recognises those, says so, and keeps the file as a document rather than forcing a plan out of it.
Your file probably has no detail in it. A Gantt chart has room for a task name, an owner and a bar, and nothing else. Once your plan is in, you can answer a few clarifying questions and have that detail written onto the tasks — your structure, properly documented. That combination is the point; neither route gets you there on its own.

Or let AI interview you

If you don't even have the words yet — just an idea — Waymarq can build the brief with you. In the setup wizard, under the describe-it box, choose "Build a brief with AI" (needs AI configured).

AI asks a short round of questions — what the project is, who it's for, the scope, budget, timeline, constraints, and what success looks like — mixing quick multiple-choice with free text. Answer what you can and skip the rest; nothing is forced. You can also send the round to your client as a no-login link, exactly like clarifying questions, and their answers feed straight back in.

When you've answered enough, Waymarq writes the answers up into a project brief and saves it as the project's spec (a new version each time). Ask another round for more depth, or stop there and plan from what you have — either way it's an ordinary spec document from that point, feeding the same planning flow below. Every round of questions and each write-up is a small AI call, tracked in your AI usage report.

The flow

Add the brief to the project's Files — either upload a document (.docx, .pdf or .txt, whose text Waymarq extracts) or type a description as above.
Open AI assistant. It shows the sequence: spec uploaded → clarify → build the plan → review → start the work.
Clarify the spec (optional but worth it). Waymarq reads the brief and asks you a handful of questions about the things it genuinely can't tell — the answers make the plan meaningfully better. Answer them one at a time, or send the list to your client as a link they can fill in without an account.
Review the phases. Waymarq works out the phases first and stops there, so you see the shape of the plan before anything is written around it. Rename, reorder, delete or add to them on Phases & tasks if it isn't right.

This is also where you say what you're actually building right now. A brief often describes more than the client has asked you for yet — a roadmap with its later stages written down, or work everyone knows is for next year. Mark those phases later and they're still planned and written up, but their tasks land in the backlog: out of the effort total, out of the delivery date and off the board, until you commit to them. When that work does get the go-ahead, move the tasks out of the backlog — nothing has to be planned again.

Delete a phase only when you never want it at all. Deferring keeps the work; deleting throws it away.

You can also do this later, once the tasks exist — which is usually when it comes up, since the stage nobody agreed to is easiest to spot on a finished plan. See marking a phase for later.
Choose how much plan you want, and write the tasks. The choice sits next to your own phases rather than in a settings screen, because it's far easier to judge with them on screen. Tasks are then written one call per phase, so a long document doesn't have to fit into a single request.
Review and edit. You get real phases and tasks, with descriptions, specifications, estimates and dependencies. Change anything.
Start the work — mark the project active. Dates stop being provisional and scheduling tracking begins.

Generation takes a few minutes on a substantial document. You can leave the page; you'll get an email when it's done.

How much plan do you want?

Asked once the phases are proposed, with them on screen — the difference between these is much easier to judge against your own project than in the abstract. The phases come out the same either way; this is about how much gets written inside them.

Outline — the stages, with a few high-level tasks in each. No specs, no subtasks. Enough for you to see where things are up to, without being told how to do work you already know. Also the cheapest to generate.
Working plan — tasks you can work from, each with a short spec, and subtasks only where a task genuinely splits into separate pieces. Not a step-by-step guide. The default.
Full breakdown — every task written out: a full specification, prerequisites, subtasks where relevant and a test plan. The right choice when someone who wasn't in the conversation is going to pick this up — a new developer, a subcontractor, or an AI coding agent.

A phase you added by hand is marked yours and gets no AI-written tasks — there's nothing in the spec for it to read — so add those yourself.

You can change the depth and regenerate at any point; it applies to the next generation, not retrospectively.

How closely should it follow the brief?

A separate setting, in the plan settings, and a genuinely different question — you might want a terse plan derived strictly from a specification, or a thorough one with sensible professional embellishment.

Concise — short cards.
Balanced — light embellishment where the brief is thin. The default.
Strict — derived only from the document, spec wording carried through with section references, and gaps raised as clarifying questions rather than guessed at. Right for a detailed specification you've been told to follow exactly.

Afterwards

Once a plan exists, the AI assistant's job is largely done — the everyday tools take over. Two things stay useful:

Clarifications — ask another round of questions at any point, and turn the answers into proposed task changes you accept individually.
Recheck against the spec — from Files, compare the current plan to the document and flag where they've drifted. Read-only; nothing changes automatically.

The other direction

You can also point your own AI coding assistant at Waymarq's API and have it build and maintain a project from a spec. That's the inverse — your agent does the reasoning, Waymarq stores the result — and it works even with AI switched off here. See Organisation settings → API, or the developer documentation.