Paste the brief

What the brief is

The text a project starts from: the instructions from your course, a client's request or a call for proposals. In the Files step of a new project, paste it into Paste the brief, or choose a PDF, Word, text or Markdown file.

How it's read

• Numbered items, such as 1. or 2) or II., become parts. So do headings like “Step 1:”, “Part 2” or “Steg 3”, when there are at least two.
• The items under a part become its tasks, and the items under a task become its steps. Under a heading, every line is a task.
• Dates become due dates. A date that has already passed is kept and marked, and isn't used as a due date.
• A sentence with a date that names a checkpoint, like “Mid-point hand-in 12 September”, becomes a checkpoint. The latest hand-in date it names is offered as the deadline, never set without asking.
• Rules about length and amount, like “max 12 pages” or “at least three sources”, become steps of the task they belong to.
• Items that start with Choose or Decide become decisions, and the parts after them wait for them.
• Each part gets a strength from its words, so people can be suggested.
• Nothing is dropped: lines that match no rule stay in the part's brief.

What the kit adds

The kit still adds its final part, such as Writing in Group report or Seminar and hand-in in Thesis, with the tasks that finish the work, waiting for the brief's parts. The brief's own checkpoints come first, then any of the kit's that this part uses.

Worth a second look

Below the box, the reading lists what it found and anything worth checking, such as a number used twice or a date that can be read two ways. If no list or headings with at least two items are found, the kit's parts stay and the brief goes to the library.

Nothing leaves your browser

The brief is read in your browser by plain rules in our own code, not by AI, and nothing is sent until you create the project. Then it's kept in the library, as a note or as the file you picked, and its items become the brief checklist on the Overview, which shows whether every item is covered by a part.

For a project you already have

On the Plan page, Add parts from a brief reads a brief the same way and adds its parts and tasks after the parts you have.