How Zalcro works
What Zalcro is
Zalcro is an AI-powered planning tool for you to use before you write any code. It is built specifically for when you are building software with AI coding tools.
You describe what you want to build in plain language. Zalcro asks focused questions to understand your budget, your timeline, your technical preferences. From that conversation, it generates a complete set of planning documents that your coding agent can follow to build the right thing.
Zalcro doesn't write code; it isn't a coding tool. Instead, it gives you the planning layer that coding tools are missing.
Who Zalcro is for
Zalcro is built for you, whether you are:
A vibe coder
You use Lovable, Bolt, or Replit to build without writing code. You prompt first but hit the "doom loop" when the AI goes in circles or breaks at scale. Zalcro creates a clear roadmap so your AI builds in the right direction from the start.
An agentic builder
You use Claude Code, Cursor, or similar tools. You know how to build but waste time re-explaining architecture to your AI agent every session. Zalcro generates structured context your agent reads to understand your system instantly.
In both cases, you face the same problem: you are working with powerful tools that have no memory of the decisions you made at the start of your project. Zalcro creates that memory for you.
What problem Zalcro solves
When you skip planning and go straight to prompting, three things typically go wrong:
- The agent makes architectural decisions you did not intend. Without a clear structure to follow, AI coding tools make assumptions. They pick a database because it is common, not because it fits your requirements. They structure the app in a way that works for small scale but breaks later. These decisions are expensive to undo.
- The agent repeats itself or loses context. You might hit a point in your session where your AI starts regenerating code it already wrote, contradicting your earlier decisions, or producing inconsistent results. This is the "doom loop," and it happens because your agent has no stable reference for what your project is supposed to look like.
- You end up writing tasks without knowing the architecture. If you try to plan work before deciding on your architecture, you plan the wrong work. Zalcro generates tickets only after your architecture is locked, so every task is grounded in a real technical decision.
What Zalcro produces
Every Zalcro session starts the same way: a conversation about your idea before anything is built. What you get at the end depends on which workflow you choose.
Workflow For vibe coders (Lovable, Bolt, Replit)
Architecture Design Document (ADD)
A structured document describing the technical architecture of your product. Written in plain language (no engineering background required to read it). It covers what the product does, how it is structured, the key decisions made, and why.
Architecture Diagram
A visual map of your system showing the main components and how they connect. Exportable as an image or Draw.io XML.
Prompt Pack
A set of paste-ready prompts tailored to your platform of choice. Each prompt encodes your architecture so your vibe coding tool builds in the right direction from the start. Instead of hoping the AI figures out your structure, you give it the plan upfront.
Workflow For agentic builders (Claude Code, Cursor)
Architecture Design Document (ADD)
A structured document your coding agent can read directly as a reference. Covers your tech stack, database design, main system components, key trade-offs, and the recommended approach, with enough technical detail to keep your agent aligned across sessions.
Architecture Diagram
A visual diagram of your system in Mermaid format, showing your main components and how they connect. Exportable as an image or Draw.io XML.
Implementation Plan
A phased build plan in the correct dependency order. Each phase tells your agent what it is building, why it exists in the architecture, and what done looks like. Starts with an environment setup checklist: every account, credential, and third-party service configured before a single line of code is written.
Tickets
Granular, executable tasks generated one phase at a time. Each ticket has enough context that your coding agent can complete it without asking clarifying questions. Export to Linear, Jira, ClickUp, or paste directly into Claude Code or Cursor.
How the conversation works
When you start a new project, you enter a structured planning conversation. Zalcro acts as your senior technical advisor: it asks you questions, offers recommendations, and helps you think through decisions you might not have considered.
The conversation covers:
- What your product does and who it is for
- How your users will interact with it
- What integrations or third-party services it needs
- Your team size and technical experience
- Your hosting preferences and budget
- Any compliance, security, or performance requirements
- Your preferred coding workflow (vibe coding or agentic development)
Zalcro asks a maximum of three questions per turn, never presents a wall of options, and always gives you a recommendation alongside the alternatives. If you do not know the answer to something, you can say so and Zalcro will suggest a sensible default or flag it as a decision to revisit later.
Once your conversation is complete, Zalcro generates the Architecture Design Document and diagram. You review them, ask for changes if needed, and then unlock your Implementation Plan and tickets.
How Zalcro differs from asking Claude or ChatGPT for a plan
You can ask a general AI assistant to plan your architecture, but you will get very different results.
A general assistant just answers the question you ask. It won't systematically ask you for the requirements it needs to give good advice. It won't structure the output in a way that your coding agent can reliably read. It won't remember your decisions from one turn when generating the next document, and it won't enforce that the tickets it writes are grounded in your architecture.
Zalcro is purpose-built for this. The conversation is designed to surface the decisions that matter before your architecture is locked. The outputs are designed to be read by coding agents, not just humans. The generation pipeline keeps your documents connected, so your tickets reference your implementation plan, which references your ADD.
This is the difference between asking a smart generalist for advice and using a tool purpose-built for the job.
Free tier and Builder tier
Our Free tier gives you one Architecture Design Document and one Architecture Diagram per month. We save your projects permanently, so you can return to them at any time to continue the conversation.
Our Builder tier ($19/month or $180/year) unlocks your full Implementation Plan, all tickets across every phase, DOCX and Draw.io XML exports, and Google Drive integration.
If you are a free tier user on the Agentic workflow, you will see Phase 1 tickets only. If you are on the Vibe Coding workflow, you get the first prompt only. When you upgrade to Builder, you unlock the full outputs immediately; we don't regenerate anything, because we always store your full documents.
Technical requirements for using Zalcro
Zalcro runs in the browser. No installation is required. You need:
- A Zalcro account (free to create, email verification required before first generation)
- A project idea or an existing document describing what you want to build
Zalcro works on your desktop and mobile devices, though the conversation is optimized for desktop use.