Drafting with Arq

Draft views from a brief

On a model's Views tab, choose Draft views with Arq, describe the system in a sentence or two, and pick the C4 levels to draft. Arq proposes elements, relationships and views. The proposal is checked against the metamodel before you see it.

The brief

Each model has a Brief tab: purpose, scope, actors, goals, constraints, non-functional requirements (availability, latency, data residency, compliance), standards to prefer and the notations you want. Attach specs or requirements as .md, .txt, .docx or .pdf; their text becomes context (a scanned PDF has no text to read, and Arq says so). Draft views from this brief saves it and drafts from it, and every proposed element says which part of the brief it answers.

Review proposals

Proposals appear as dashed blocks, with a bar above the canvas showing how many are waiting. Select one to see why Arq proposed it, then Accept or Reject it, or use Accept all. Nothing enters the model until it is accepted, and rejecting a block also rejects the relationships that depend on it.

The command bar

Above the canvas, tell Arq what to do in plain language, for example group all application components into an environment called Azure and auto-layout. Arq plans the steps from the editor's own commands and runs them as one undoable change. The same works from anywhere in a view: press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac), type the instruction and choose Ask Arq.

Run history

A model's Agent runs tab lists every draft, command and coding-agent proposal: what was asked, what came back, how much was accepted, the model used, tokens and cost. An element that came from a proposal says so in the inspector's History tab, with a link to its run.

Oversight

Rate any run as helpful or not from its row in Agent runs. Workspace Settings shows, under Agent oversight, how often people accept what each agent proposes and which kinds of change they accept, and links to every run in the workspace.

Credits and your own key

Each subscription includes a hosted AI credit every month. Arq stops at zero rather than charging more. In AI settings you can add your own Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenAI-compatible key; requests with it are not metered by Arq. Keys are encrypted before they are stored.