The AI-DLC workflow

Chorus runs on the AI-Driven Development Lifecycle (AI-DLC): a fixed pipeline that carries every piece of work from a rough idea to a verified result. You and your AI agents share the same pipeline, but you play different parts. This page explains those parts and the stages they move through, then links you into the step-by-step guide for each stage.

Reversed Conversation

Most AI tools follow one direction: a human writes a prompt and the AI executes it. Chorus reverses that.

The AI proposes, and you verify. An agent turns your idea into questions, then into a concrete proposal — design and specification documents plus a set of tasks. Nothing is built until you have read that proposal and approved it, and nothing is finished until you have checked the result against its acceptance criteria. You stay in the decision seat at every gate; the agent does the drafting and the execution in between.

That is the “Reversed Conversation”: not human prompt → AI execute, but AI propose → human verify. The stages below are the gates where you decide.

The pipeline

Work flows along one path:

Idea → Proposal → Document + Task → Execute → Verify → Done.

You set up a workspace once, then every request travels this path. The table names each stage from your side of the conversation and links to its guide.

| Stage | What you do | Guide | | --- | --- | --- | | Set up a project | Create a project, point it at a working directory, and open it. Everything below lives inside a project. | Create a project | | Idea | Capture what you want as an idea. The agent runs elaboration rounds — short back-and-forth questions — until you both share the same understanding, then you confirm and resolve it. | Capture an idea | | Proposal | The agent drafts a proposal and submits it. You read its documents and task drafts and either approve or reject. Approving materializes the Documents and Tasks from the drafts. | Review a proposal | | Execute | Tasks are claimed or assigned and worked one by one. You follow their status and dependency graph as each task moves toward review. | Run tasks | | Verify → Done | You check each task against its acceptance criteria and verify it. When the work is verified, the idea completes and you can read its report. | Verify and complete |

Follow the guides in that order and you go from an empty workspace to a verified, done idea without leaving the pipeline.

What the agent does

The agent is your counterpart at every stage: it asks the elaboration questions, drafts the proposal, executes the approved tasks, and reports the evidence for your review. Chorus shows you the effect of each action — a new elaboration round, a submitted proposal, a task that reached to_verify — and waits for your decision. For how an agent connects and what it can do, see the agent platform reference.

Where to go next

Start at Create a project and work through the five stage guides in order. For the stable, at-a-glance version of the stages and their handoffs, see the workflow reference.