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FAQ

Questions and answers

PlanSmith sells planners for AI coding agents. This page explains what a planner is, how you use one and where its numbers come from.

What it is

What do I get when I buy a planner?
A folder of Markdown files. The School Management planner has 72 of them: an entry point (START-HERE.md), a feature map your agent can read, a contract for each major feature and screen, a build sequence and a complete worked example. You download a zip and put the folder in your project.
Is it software I have to install?
No. There is nothing to install and nothing to run. It is text your coding agent reads, so you can read every word yourself before you use it.
So it’s a prompt?
No. A prompt is a paragraph you paste. A planner is a structured package your agent works through: 83 cited features for School Management, grouped into 15 stages. Each one says what to ask, what counts as done, and which real products the requirement came from.
Does it write my app for me?
Your coding agent builds the app, and the planner directs it. The planner asks you questions, works out what the app needs and writes the spec. Your agent then writes the code from that spec, one feature at a time, and checks each feature against a written definition of “finished”. You end up with a working app, and your agent no longer has to invent the requirements.

Using it

How do I use it?
Put the folder in your project and tell your agent: Read START-HERE.md and act as the planner. It asks what you are building, goes through the checklist with you, and writes the spec to CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md. Then you tell your agent to build.
Which coding agents does it work with?
Any agent that can read files in your repository. We test with Claude Code, Cursor and ChatGPT Codex. There is no SDK and nothing to connect, because it is only Markdown.
Do I need to know the industry?
No. You do not need to know what a school registrar needs, or how a restaurant takes ingredients out of stock when a dish is sold. The checklist already holds what products in that market do, and the planner asks you to include, defer or skip each item.
Do I need to be a developer?
You do not write the code yourself, but you do need to be comfortable running an AI coding agent on a codebase. It is not a no-code product.

The evidence

What does “cited” mean?
Every recommendation comes from a count across real products. The School Management inventory was built from 46 sources, and the planner records how many of them had each feature: an admin portal in 38, a gradebook in 38, a teacher portal in 35. Your agent works from that table, so it does not have to guess what a product in that market contains.
Who did the counting?
People, by hand, from products on sale today. No model generated these numbers. It is slow work, which is why the catalogue grows one market at a time.
Is every planner backed by a counted inventory?
Not yet, and the planner page says so. A planner without a verified count is flagged in red on its page. In the catalogue, each planner shows its source count or an unverified flag.
How do I know the planners produce working software?
We give the same planner to several models and let each one build. Then we audit what each one built and publish the scores, including the bad ones. The build-offs are public, and several of the apps are live for you to click through.

Buying

How much, and is it a subscription?
$49 per planner, paid once. There is no subscription. You get the planner and every future version of it.
What happens after I pay?
The planner appears in your library and you download it there. Checkout is locked to the email you signed in with, so the purchase always goes to your account. You can download it again at any time.
What do updates mean?
The inventories grow as more products are counted, and the planners are revised as we learn what makes agents fail. When a planner you own is updated, the new version is in your library at no extra charge.
Can I get a refund?
No. The whole planner downloads as soon as you pay, so there is nothing to return. You can judge it before you buy: every planner page lists the inventory it was built from and how many products were counted, the build-offs show what real coding models produced from it, and several of those apps are live for you to try. If a download fails or you bought the wrong planner, send us a message and we will fix it. Where local consumer law gives you a right that we cannot remove, it still applies.

Still not sure a planner fits what you are building? Open one and read its full description. Every planner page shows the inventory it was built from before you buy.

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