Skip to content

Add a guided Engineering Brief workflow for AI-assisted design #165

Description

@10-X-eng

User outcome

Give engineers a guided way to turn an incomplete natural-language request into a clear, reviewable engineering brief before the CAD agent starts acting.

Proposed experience

Add an optional Build Engineering Brief action to the VibeCAD bar beside the normal send workflow.

  1. Open a dedicated dialog that the user can keep visible and read comfortably.
  2. Seed it with the user's request plus safe context already known by VibeCAD: active document, selection, workspace, units, and cached document context.
  3. Let a non-mutating brief assistant ask only high-value missing questions, one at a time.
  4. Show the evolving brief throughout the conversation in a readable, editable preview.
  5. Allow Use best judgment for unanswered details and show every resulting assumption explicitly.
  6. Let the user approve the brief with Start in VibeCAD; hand the original request, approved brief, assumptions, and document references atomically to the existing agent.
  7. Keep ordinary chat/send behavior unchanged for users who do not use the feature.

Brief content

  • Objective and desired deliverable
  • Existing geometry/document context
  • Dimensions and units
  • Materials
  • Interfaces and constraints
  • Loads and operating conditions
  • Manufacturing process and tolerances
  • Required analyses/drawings
  • Acceptance criteria
  • Explicit assumptions and open questions

Product rules

  • The brief assistant cannot mutate CAD or silently invent consequential engineering values.
  • It must not ask for information VibeCAD already knows.
  • It must distinguish hard requirements from preferences.
  • It must not question forever: the user can proceed at any point with explicit assumptions.
  • The canonical brief should be structured data; the user sees and edits a natural-language rendering.
  • Persist the brief with the document/conversation so it can be reopened and revised.
  • Normal VibeCAD chat and existing provider/tool contracts remain compatible.

Acceptance criteria

  • A visible VibeCAD-bar action opens a readable Engineering Brief window.
  • A user can enter a rough goal, answer guided questions, and see the brief update.
  • The window exposes editable brief content and explicit assumptions/open questions.
  • The workflow uses active document context without mutating the document.
  • The user can stop questioning and proceed with best judgment.
  • Starting work creates one clear handoff to the normal VibeCAD agent.
  • Closing/canceling the window does not send or mutate anything.
  • Existing normal chat behavior remains unchanged.
  • The feature is covered by red/green tests, including persistence and handoff behavior.

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions