Overview
What Foundry is, how it's structured, and how its pages map to the work hierarchy.
What is Foundry?
Foundry is an operating system for builders. It provides structured surfaces for capturing ideas, triaging opportunities, governing project capacity, logging decisions, tracking commitments, and reviewing your week.
Unlike general productivity tools, Foundry is opinionated. It enforces a specific workflow: capture → triage → execute → reflect. Every page exists for a reason. There are no blank canvases, no freeform notebooks, and no task lists. Each surface maps to a layer in the work hierarchy and serves a governance function.
Each Foundry account has its own workspace. Foundry is currently a single-operator tool.
The Work Hierarchy
Foundry organizes all work into a six-layer hierarchy. Every object you create sits at one of these layers. Understanding this hierarchy is essential to using Foundry effectively, it explains why certain features exist and why others deliberately don't.
| Layer | Name | What It Is | Foundry Surface | Governance Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ------- | ------ | ----------- | ----------------- | --------------------- |
| 1 | Mission | Why the business exists | Not modeled | Implicit context |
| 2 | Strategic Priority | What to pursue given constraints | Focus page | Capacity limits |
| 3 | Project | Committed, time-boxed initiative | Projects page | Health tracking |
| 4 | Initiative | Workstream within a project | Journal + tags | Not explicitly modeled |
| 5 | Opportunity | Evaluated idea awaiting promotion | Triage / Vault | Scoring matrix |
| 6 | Commitment | External promise to another person | Commitments page | Due date tracking |
Key rules:
- Ideas enter at Layer 5. They are not projects, not tasks, not commitments, they are raw opportunities.
- Projects live at Layer 3. Creating a project is a commitment of attention. Capacity governance enforces this.
- Commitments are Layer 6, external promises to other people. Internal to-dos don't exist in Foundry.
- The promotion between layers is always explicit. A triaged idea with BUILD_NOW doesn't automatically become a project, you decide.
Page Map
Each page serves a single, non-overlapping function. The Today page is your daily starting point, it aggregates action items from all other pages. Overview is the strategic health dashboard. Recommendations surfaces system-generated alerts. Settings manages your account, workspace, capacity, tags, and billing.
The Core Loop
Foundry's workflow follows a repeating loop:
1. Capture. Get thoughts out of your head immediately. Don't evaluate, just capture.
2. Triage. Score captured ideas against 16 criteria. Separate signal from noise.
3. Execute. Work on active projects. Log decisions. Track commitments. Journal progress.
4. Reflect. Weekly review closes the loop. What worked? What didn't? What's next?
This loop runs continuously. Ideas flow in through capture. The best ones graduate through triage. Projects consume your attention. The weekly review catches what fell through the cracks.
Workspace Model
Every Foundry account has exactly one workspace. A workspace is the container for all your data, projects, ideas, assets, decisions, commitments, tags, and settings. There is no multi-user or shared workspace functionality.
Workspace fields:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| ------- | ------------- |
| Name | Display name (e.g. "Tim's Studio"). Shown in sidebar header. |
| Capacity Profile | Max active projects, focus lane, capacity notes |
| Tags | Workspace-scoped tags for categorization |
| Subscription | Free or Pro plan status |
All database queries are scoped to your workspace ID. You cannot access data from other workspaces, and no one can access yours.
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| ---------- | -------- |
| Cmd+Shift+K | Open Quick Capture modal (capture from anywhere) |
| Cmd+K | Open global search |
| ? | Open contextual help panel for current page |
These shortcuts work from any page within the app.
FAQ
No. Foundry deliberately has no task system. Commitments track external promises (to other people), not internal to-dos. If you need a task list, use a separate tool. Foundry handles strategic governance.
Can I use Foundry with a team?
No. Foundry is a single-operator tool. One workspace, one operator.
What happens to my data if I stop paying?
Nothing is deleted. You keep all your data. You just can't create new items beyond free tier limits until you re-upgrade. See the Plans & Billing docs for details.
Is there an API?
No public API. Foundry uses tRPC internally. An endpoint exists at /api/trpc but it is undocumented and unsupported.
Does Foundry work on mobile?
Yes. The web app is fully responsive and works on mobile browsers. There is also a native iOS app available via TestFlight that syncs with your web account.