Starting a Project

There are several ways to begin a new project in Dazl, depending on what you're starting from.

The Dashboard prompt box with the attachment and enhance prompt buttons

From a Text Prompt

The most common starting point. Type a description of what you want to build in the prompt box on the Dashboard and send it.

A good prompt includes:

What it is — "A landing page for a drone pet delivery service"
Key sections or features — "with a hero, features grid, pricing, and sign-up form"
Any design direction — "modern, clean, with a playful tone"

The AI generates a complete project with pages, components, and styling. During generation, the agent can crawl websites and search the web for reference material, helping it produce designs that better match your description. You can always refine from there.

Working in smaller, incremental steps tends to get better results than putting everything into a single large prompt. Start with the basics, then iterate.

From a Plan

Enable the Plan toggle in the prompt box before sending your prompt. Instead of generating code immediately, Dazl creates an editable project plan with:

Pages — each with a description, URL, and a list of sections you can reorder, add, or remove
Features — cards describing the key capabilities, with descriptions you can edit
Theme guidelines — design direction for the AI to follow

The project plan view showing pages with sections, feature cards, and Build/Regenerate buttons

You can edit every part of the plan directly — rename sections, rewrite descriptions, remove features, or add new ones. Use the Chat to ask the AI for plan changes, or edit it yourself.

The plan is validated before you can build — errors are highlighted by section, and the Build button stays disabled until they're resolved. When you're satisfied, click Build to generate the project. Click Regenerate plan to start over with a fresh plan from the same prompt. See Plan for the full reference.

From a Screenshot or File

Click the attachment button (paperclip icon) in the prompt box to attach files as context. You can attach:

Screenshots — of an existing UI to recreate or riff on
Images — design mockups, logos, or other visual assets
Documents — PRDs, briefs, or reference material
Data files — CSVs, JSON, or other structured data

Add a prompt describing what you want:

"Here's a screenshot of our current dashboard. Recreate it and add a dark mode toggle" or "Build a project tracker based on this spreadsheet"

This is useful when you want to experiment with changes to an existing product without affecting the real thing.

From Specs

If you have a detailed specification — a PRD, a feature description, or technical requirements — you can paste it directly into the prompt or add it to the Specs panel after creating the project. Well-written specs give the AI a clearer understanding of what you're trying to build.

See Writing Specs for how to get the most out of spec-driven development.

Using Discuss Mode

The Discuss button in the Chat panel toggles discuss mode. When active, the AI responds conversationally without modifying your project's code.

This is useful for:

Brainstorming — think through ideas, explore directions, or plan features together with the AI before committing to changes
Understanding your project — ask the AI why something behaves a certain way, how a component works, or what a piece of code does
Experimenting — test ideas and get the AI's perspective without generating code changes

Toggle it off when you're ready for the AI to start making changes again.

Choosing Your AI Model

Once your project is created, you can choose which AI model to use in the Chat panel. Different models offer different trade-offs between quality, speed, and cost.

See Chat for a comparison of available models.

Writing Specs – guide the AI with structured specifications
Templates – save and reuse project starting points
Chat – model selector and available models
Your First Project – step-by-step walkthrough for beginners