Work Orders

Work Orders are structured, traceable tasks that move the system toward the target state defined in your requirements and Blueprints. Each Work Order brings together everything a contributor needs to execute:

• Core metadata: ID, title, status, assignees, and phase.
• Rich description: purpose, acceptance criteria, and out-of-scope notes.
• Knowledge graph connection: links to upstream requirements and Blueprints, including concrete references.
• Implementation plan (optional): a step-by-step, file-level outline for engineering work.
• Activity and comments: a chronological feed of changes and threaded discussions, including attachments.

Getting started

Step 1: Configure Work Order settings

Before creating tasks, configure the planning structure so downstream behavior matches your team's expectations.

Set the Work Order extraction strategy:

• Choose a default extraction style, such as feature-slice or specialist-oriented.
• Optionally give the agent custom instructions for breaking Blueprints into tasks.
• These settings control subsequent Extract Work Orders from Blueprints operations.

This upfront configuration keeps future Work Orders, phases, and agent-driven planning consistent.

Step 2: Create your first Work Orders

There are two main approaches.

Agent-driven extraction from Blueprints

• Run Extract Work Orders from Blueprints.
• The agent reads relevant Blueprints and Requirements, applies your extraction strategy, and proposes Work Orders for review.

Manual creation

• Click + in the left outline panel to open the creation form.
• Drafts are cached locally if you navigate away and restored when you return.

Created Work Orders appear in the table view, where you can search, filter, and open details.

Step 3: Manage phases and execution order

Assign phases

• Use the table's Phase column to set or change a phase.
• Group by Phase to see collapsible sections and phase ranges.
• When many items are unassigned, use the agent's Phase Planning action to propose a plan and apply it after confirmation.

Sequence work with drag and drop

When the table is grouped by Phase:

• Drag within a phase to change execution priority.
• Drag into another phase to reassign and position the Work Order in that phase.

Refine the plan with filters and search

• Filter by assignee, status, phase, deliverable type, or feature.
• Search by title to locate an item before moving or resequencing it.

This becomes the core planning loop: create or extract Work Orders, place them into phases, and order them so the team knows what comes next.

MCP connections

Software Factory integrates with external development tools through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Developers can interact with Work Orders from their local environment and reduce context switching between planning and implementation.

What MCP enables

Connected development tools receive secure, project-scoped access for:

• Listing Work Orders assigned to the developer
• Reading descriptions and implementation plans
• Updating status, such as moving a task to In Review
• Following the current phase and execution order without leaving the editor

Connect your development environment

1. In the Work Orders table, select MCP Connection.
2. Follow the setup instructions for your coding agent. Some agents support one-click installation; others provide JSON to add to your project's .mcp.json.
3. If prompted, select Use This MCP server to confirm.

When setup finishes, the status changes to Connected and Software Factory tools become available in the coding environment.

Work with Software Factory through MCP

After connecting, developers can:

• Query assigned Work Orders in the Ready state.
• Search Requirements, Blueprints, and Artifacts for additional context.
• Update Work Order status as development progresses.

Changes appear immediately in Software Factory, keeping the project plan current.

Agent capabilities

The agent can create and edit Work Orders, proposing titles, descriptions, assignees, statuses, and phases. It can also batch-edit multiple Work Orders—for example, moving a selected group to Phase 2 and setting them to Ready.

Synchronizing Work Orders

Background agents monitor Blueprints for significant changes:

• Create Work Orders from Blueprints: when a Blueprint is completed or substantially updated, an alert can offer to extract new Work Orders.
• Update Work Orders from Blueprints: when existing Work Orders drift from their Blueprints, an alert identifies affected tasks and guides suggested updates.

Best practices

• Configure phase cadence and extraction strategies in Overview → Project Settings. Treat those settings as the contract between Blueprints and execution.
• Ground every task in upstream Requirements or Blueprints using Knowledge Graph connections and Find References.
• Treat Purpose, Acceptance Criteria, and Out of Scope as required boundaries.
• Keep implementation plans specific enough to unblock development, but focus on files, key changes, and integration points rather than mirroring every line of code.
• Use agent actions for extraction, bulk updates, and phase planning while reserving judgment calls for people.
• Respond to alerts and synchronize regularly so drift does not accumulate.

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