The fastest way to explain Bridge is to walk through one idea from the moment it arrives to the moment it becomes an implementable spec. Here is a single, real-feeling example.
Key takeaways
- Three rough notes, dictated in twenty seconds each, can become a spec set a coding agent can build from.
- On Discover and above, Bridge groups related notes into a constellation on its own, and it becomes the venture.
- Gaps in the idea are settled inside the plan, and anything the notes cannot settle is marked for you.
- The output is eight short files, from brief and user flow to tasks and acceptance conditions, plus an AGENTS.md.
The capture
It's a Tuesday evening. You're on a walk. You have a thought: it would be useful to have a small app that tracks every book I've ever mentioned wanting to read, across any source — a friend's recommendation, a podcast, a Twitter post, something my coworker said on Slack. One place. Searchable. Tagged by who recommended it and why. Most of them reach me in other apps, so I want to send them straight from there.
You open Bridge on your phone, tap +, and dictate that paragraph, more or less. Twenty seconds. You keep walking.
You didn't title the note. You didn't pick a category. You didn't write any acceptance criteria. Good. That's the point. The only job of the capture stage is to get the idea out of your head before it decays.
The constellation
This isn't the first time the idea has come up. Three weeks earlier, you captured a note that said "I keep meaning to re-read things but I can't remember which books I marked as re-read candidates." Last week, another: "a podcast recommended a book and I'd forgotten the title by the time I got home."
On Discover and above, Bridge compares each note's meaning with the others. With the third related note, the three connect and a constellation forms, with a name like Reading list that remembers who recommended what. The re-read idea fits inside it: a re-read candidate is just a tag.
Another note from last month said "I want a friends-only feed where people post things they're currently excited about." It's close, but it's a different idea, so it stays on its own.
That is the explore stage, and you did nothing for it. There's no proposal to approve and no project to set up. Once the constellation forms, it is the venture.
What does Bridge do with the gaps?
The idea implied decisions you never made. How does a book get in: typed, sent from another app, parsed from a URL? Is "who recommended it" a free-text name or a contact? A book mentioned at work, on a podcast and by a friend: one book with three sources, or three entries?
Bridge doesn't stop to quiz you. When it generates the plan, it settles each gap it can from what your notes say and writes the decision down in the file it affects. Your notes say most books reach you in other apps, so the plan makes the share sheet those apps already show (iOS, Android) the main way to add a book to your app. They say "tagged by who recommended it", so the recommender is a free-text name, and your app asks for no contact permission.
Your notes never answer the third. So the data model file carries a marker, [NEEDS CLARIFICATION: ...], with the assumption it made: one book with several sources, matched by title. You and your coding agent both see exactly what was assumed (how Bridge handles ambiguity). To settle it, add a note with the answer and tap Build Plan again, or, on the Refine tier, ask chat to change it.
The spec set
You tap Start a venture on the constellation. The three notes come pre-checked; you tap Build Plan. Usually two or three minutes later, the plan is in the Plan tab: eight short files and an overlay (the output files).
00_index.md: the entry point, which orients an agent to the set.
01_brief.md: what to build, why and for whom. A reading list that remembers who recommended each book, and why.
02_user_flow.md: the one end-to-end flow you could demonstrate. Send a book from another app; see it in the list with its source.
03_architecture.md: the system's shape and stack, with the share-sheet intake your notes made core.
04_data_model.md: the entities and function signatures. A book with its sources, each with a free-text recommender name, and the marked question about duplicates.
05_tasks.md: atomic tasks in dependency order, each with the condition that means it is done. Your agent updates their status as it works.
06_acceptance.md: the testable conditions for "done".
07_scope.md: what this first version includes, stated positively: one user, with books added from the share sheet or typed in.
AGENTS.md: the overlay at the project root, in the open AGENTS.md format that coding agents read, which points your agent at the set in the right order.
What changes between the paragraph and the spec?
At the start of this example, you had a paragraph. At the end, you have a spec set of about 4,000 tokens, small enough for a coding agent to hold all of it. On Build and above, you download the zip from the Plan tab and unzip it into your project; the agent follows AGENTS.md's reading order to 05_tasks.md. If you hand it to an agent, Spec, Plan, Build, Review: A Workflow for Agent Coding covers what comes next: a plan where every task ends in a test, then a fresh agent reviewing the whole branch.
Nothing about the files is magical. They are what a thoughtful engineer would write after interviewing you about the idea. The shift is that the thinking happened in a few notes on your phone, spread across weeks, instead of in a meeting you had to block out at a laptop.
The four stages, Capture, Explore, Specify and Refine, are the shape of that shift. Refine is the last: on the Refine tier, you open a chat scoped to the plan, ask for the change in plain language, and approve each edit as an inline diff. Bridge is the surface that makes them possible in the margins of your day.
That's the whole product. The deeper rationale lives in Plans Are the High-Yield Phase of the Work.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to turn an idea into a spec with Bridge?
In this example, each capture takes about twenty seconds, and the notes that complete the idea arrive over weeks. Once they form a constellation, Build Plan usually takes two or three minutes. The thinking a thoughtful engineer would draw out of you in a meeting happens in your notes instead.
Can I hand a Bridge spec to a coding agent?
Yes. On Build and above, download the zip from the Plan tab and unzip it into your project; the agent reads AGENTS.md first, follows its reading order to 05_tasks.md, and updates each task's status. Spec, Plan, Build, Review covers the workflow after the hand-off.
Does Bridge group related ideas automatically?
Yes, on Discover and above. Bridge compares each note's meaning with the others, and once three related notes share a theme, they form a constellation with a name. You don't tag or approve anything. A note on a different idea, like the friends-only feed here, stays on its own.
What if Bridge cannot settle a gap in my idea?
It leaves a [NEEDS CLARIFICATION: ...] marker in the file it affects, with the assumption it made, so you and your coding agent both see it. Add a note with the answer and tap Build Plan again, or, on the Refine tier, ask chat to change it.