The Lab Plan

After you start a generation, the assistant doesn’t build the whole lab in one shot. It works plan-first and chapter by chapter: it drafts a roadmap, you approve it, then it plans and builds each chapter in turn while you review the result before it moves on. This page explains that flow and why it works this way.

The generation timeline

A horizontal timeline runs across the top of the assistant, showing where the generation is:

Lab plan — the overall roadmap of chapters.
One segment per chapter — the chapter currently in play expands into its two steps, Plan and Build; the others are numbered dots.
Done — the lab is fully generated.

Each step on the timeline shows its state at a glance:

Upcoming — not started yet.
In progress — the assistant is actively working on it.
Awaiting your review — the assistant has finished and needs your review to continue.
Complete — reviewed and done.

You can click any step that’s in progress, awaiting you, or complete to jump to it. The step that’s awaiting you is always where your attention is needed next. When the plan is resting between chapters, the next unplanned chapter shows a + you can click to start planning it directly from the strip.

The header’s Assistant button carries the same status as a badge — Draft, Planning, Review, Implementing, or Ready — so you can tell from any page in the lab editor whether the assistant is working or waiting on you.

The plan view

The right side of the assistant shows the Plan view (you can switch it to Files — see Working with the assistant). The plan is fully editable between steps, so you can shape the lab before the assistant builds it.

Reviewing the roadmap

While the assistant is still drafting the roadmap, the plan view shows a Drafting your plan… state and you can follow along in the chat. When the roadmap is ready, it shows the lab’s title, description, learning objectives, audience, experience level, and estimated duration, followed by the list of chapters. Each chapter has a title, a time estimate, and a goal. You can:

Edit any of the lab-level fields.
Edit, reorder, add (Add chapter), or remove chapters.

When you’re happy with the roadmap, click Approve to lock it in and let the assistant start on the first chapter. If you edited the roadmap, the button reads Save & Approve and persists your changes as it approves — or use Discard changes to drop them.

Planning and building each chapter

For each chapter the assistant works in two phases, both shown on the timeline:

Plan — the assistant designs the chapter: its pages, and the tasks, quizzes, and tabs on them. When it’s ready, you review and edit the chapter plan, then click Approve (or Save & Approve if you edited it) to have it generate the content.
Build — the assistant generates the actual lab content for the chapter. When it finishes, you review the result and approve again to move on.

Once a chapter is approved, the plan rests until you start the next one — either with Plan next chapter at the bottom of the roadmap or the + on the timeline. If a chapter plan was approved but generation never started, its footer offers Generate to kick it off.

The assistant repeats this plan → approve → build → approve cycle for every chapter until the whole lab is generated and the timeline reaches Done.

Why it works this way

Building a lab in reviewable stages is a deliberate design choice:

You stay in control. Nothing is generated without your approval of the plan behind it. You decide the shape of the lab before the assistant writes a word of content.
You catch issues early. Reviewing chapter by chapter means you can course-correct after the first chapter instead of discovering a wrong assumption after the whole lab is built. Early corrections don’t compound.
Progress is always visible. The timeline makes it clear what’s done, what’s running, and what needs you — so a long generation never feels like a black box.