Create a project

From idea to project#

1. 1
   Describe

   • Tell the Architect what you want to build.
   • You can attach a sketch, block diagram, or datasheet (image or PDF), or add your own Verilog/SystemVerilog/VHDL files to start from.
   • Answers appear as they are written; Stop ends one early. Full screen gives the conversation the whole window.
   • When you name a part or a standard (a sensor, a display, I²C), the Architect may search the web for its datasheet and lists the pages it used; it treats what it found as assumptions for you to confirm.
2. 2
   Answer a few questions

   First pick how to plan it: Guided design asks the questions that change the design (at most 3 at a time, twice); Quick prototype asks only what it cannot safely default (at most 2, once). The questions fit your kind of design: a sensor's part number and protocol, a CPU's memory map, an FPGA board's pins. “Not sure — you choose”, or skipping a question, lets it pick a sensible default, which it lists as an assumption. After the questions it proposes; if one essential fact is still missing, it says exactly which.
3. 3
   Check readiness

   The Requirements readiness card shows each requirement as Confirmed (you said it), Assumed (a default, or something from a datasheet to confirm), or Needs input, how success will be tested, and what Tapeo cannot do here (analog, radio, power, and circuit-board work stay outside the digital flow). Change my earlier answers takes you back to the questions with your answers kept.
4. 4
   Choose

   You get a design brief (what you asked for, what it assumed, how you will know it works, what is not included) and 2–3 options compared on area, speed, power, and complexity, with one recommended. Edit assumptions changes what it assumed; Update the proposal has it revise the options.
5. 5
   Review the plan

   Review build plan shows every stage the first run will attempt for your process and whether it will run, needs an input, or will be skipped. Change something asks for a change; the brief and plan update. Nothing is built until you press Build this, which needs at least one testable success criterion.
6. 6
   Build

   The project is created and the first workflow run starts. If you added your own files, they are kept unchanged and protected; the AI only adds what is missing, such as a testbench and constraints. The conversation stays in your browser until you build or start a new one.

The Architect#

One AI helps you from the first idea to the finished chip: the Architect plans a new design with you, and once the project exists it keeps helping with it. Each project has one conversation with it. When you press Build this, your planning chat becomes the start of the project's conversation, and you see the same conversation on the home page, in the project's side panel, in the terminal (tapeo ask, tapeo history), and in VS Code.

• It can review project files and tool output, propose code or plan changes, explain failures, and help repair files.
• Its answers appear as they are written; Stop ends one early. If the connection drops, press Retry to send the same message again.
• Proposed file changes appear under its reply: Show the changed lines, Leave out one change, then Reject, Apply, or Apply & simulate (for changes a simulation reads; HDL changes are linted first). Each apply is saved as a project version, and Undo puts the files back. A failed check offers Fix it, which sends the errors or the simulation output; a passing one offers Run synthesis. The cards are saved with the chat, so they show on any browser.
• The pill beside Send sets the apply mode. Choose Apply & check (it then reads Auto-fix) to skip the confirmation: new proposals are applied and checked as soon as they arrive (lint and simulation, then synthesis when the design itself changed), and a failed check goes back to the Architect by itself, up to 3 tries (Stop ends it). Choose Apply & check, keep only what passes to also undo a run that never passed. The settings are remembered in this browser. A card that proposes goals always waits for your click.
• Proposed goals and Tapeo Hub blocks are on the same card: Apply adds the blocks under ip/, applies the files, and updates the goals; Undo takes all of it back. A passing change offers Run synthesis, and the result comes back to the card. When a workflow run ends with changes it held for you (to files you edited, or the design after synthesis) or a failed formal proof, it leaves them in the chat too. A passing change can also re-measure your goals; a missed goal is a failed check. When a run leaves a card that needs you, the chat opens by itself. The Goals tab's Prepare / update plan and the Ask the Architect buttons on other tabs also bring their answer to the chat.
• First-run automation can apply bounded repairs that the user has authorized.

Your projects#

The home page is a chat with the Architect across the whole window; your projects are in the sidebar on the left, newest activity first. New design starts a new conversation; Import from GitHub, just below it, starts a project from a design you already have in a GitHub repository (it shows what it found first, then creates the project and runs the workflow). Click a project to open its conversation in the big window, and Open workspace → to work on its code, workflow, and layout with the same conversation beside you; the back arrow at the start of the project header returns to it. A project name too long for the sidebar slides to show the rest while you point at it. Hide the sidebar with its button (Tapeo remembers this), and show it again from the chat's toolbar. On a phone, the same button opens your projects as a drawer. The badge on each one is the status of its latest workflow run; hover it to see the current stage or the run's summary.

• Not run yet: no workflow has run on this project. Nothing is happening until you start a run.
• Queued or Running: a run is waiting for a worker or executing now. The list refreshes itself while a run is going.
• Last run completed: every stage the run attempted finished without issues. This is not fabrication signoff, and stages the run skipped are not covered.
• Last run has issues: the run finished, but a stage failed or needs review (for example timing, DRC, LVS, or equivalence). Open the Workflow tab for details.
• Last run failed: the run stopped with an error. Last run cancelled: it was cancelled.
• Software verified (a separate chip): a programmable design whose software tests passed.

Filter the list with All, Running, or Needs attention (the last run has issues or failed).