Setup interview
The short interview that produces a compose plan before bid composition starts.
The setup interview is the planning phase of bid composition. Instead of jumping straight into drafting, the agent first sits down with you to figure out what to draft and how — the result is an editable compose plan you approve before the heavy lifting begins.
This pattern keeps composition predictable: by the time the drafting agent starts running, both you and the agent agree on what the bid will contain.
When you'll do it
You run a setup interview every time a bid needs composition. It's the entry point — the bid composition page redirects to setup if no approved plan exists yet.
You can also re-run a setup interview if you want to change the plan after composition has already started or finished. The newer plan supersedes the older one.
What the interview asks
The setup interview agent uses a Sonnet-tier model (cheaper than the main composition agent) and runs in its own sandbox with the RFP documents loaded. It's structured to answer five questions:
- What artifacts should the bid contain? A list of sections / documents the composition agent will draft. Typical examples: technical proposal, qualifications, financial offer, project plan, references, certifications.
- What composition mode? Autopilot, guided, or interview — controls how interactive the drafting phase will be.
- What tone? Formal, technical, sales, concise, or unspecified.
- What output formats? PDF, DOCX, etc. — affects how the agent structures content for export.
- How strictly must the bid follow RFP-provided templates? Strict (always use the template), flexible (adapt where needed), mixed (case by case).
The agent reads the RFP first, then asks you questions to fill in the gaps. Most interviews take 5–10 minutes.
Running the interview
Open the setup screen
From the procurement, open the bid you want to compose. Click the Setup entry in the workflow nav. If the bid doesn't have a plan yet, you'll land on the setup welcome screen.
Describe your approach
There's a free-text Approach field at the top. This is where you tell the agent what you have in mind: which sections you definitely want, which RFP sections you want to highlight, what tone is right for this client, anything that sets context. Anything you write here is auto-saved as the bid's notes.
You don't have to fill this in — leaving it blank just means the agent will ask more questions during the interview. But the more context you give upfront, the faster the interview goes and the better the plan comes out.
Click Start
Starting the interview launches the agent. It reads the RFP, then begins asking you questions one at a time in the clarification panel. Type each answer and click Send Response to continue.
Review the proposed plan
When the agent finishes, the page renders the compose plan. The plan has two parts:
- Plan-level settings — mode, tone, format strictness, output formats, whether to include optional materials. All editable while the plan is in
draftingstatus. - Artifact list — the sections the agent proposes to draft. Each row shows title, mode, format, position, risk level, and a draft of the brief notes. You can edit any field, change the position by dragging, mark an artifact
skippedif you don't want it drafted, or use Unskip to bring it back.
Confirm or reject library suggestions
If your organization library has documents the agent thinks are relevant (matching CVs, certifications, past projects, etc.), they appear as library suggestions attached to the relevant artifacts. For each suggestion you can:
- Confirm — the document gets pulled into the composition workspace at run start. The agent can read it and reference it.
- Reject — the suggestion is removed from the plan.
Only confirmed suggestions are auto-pulled. Anything you skip stays in the library but won't influence composition.
Approve the plan
When the plan looks right, click Approve plan. This locks the plan, creates the bid composition run, and kicks off bid composition.
Once approved, the plan becomes immutable. If you need to change something, you can run a new setup interview, which produces a new plan that supersedes the previous one.
Plan statuses
The plan moves through these states:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
drafting | Agent has finished the interview and is showing you the plan. You can edit any field. |
approved | You clicked Approve. Plan is locked and composition is running or complete. |
superseded | You ran another setup interview, and a newer plan replaced this one. |
Artifact statuses
Each artifact has its own status that changes as composition progresses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
planned | In the plan, not yet drafted. |
drafted | Agent produced a draft. (You'll mostly see this only briefly during composition; it transitions to published once the draft is committed.) |
published | Drafted and the linked Document is live in the bid's documents list. |
needs_review | Validator flagged this artifact and it's waiting for your feedback. |
skipped | You marked it skipped in the plan. The agent doesn't draft it. |
Editing the plan after approval
The plan itself is locked once approved, but most decisions show up inside the composition flow:
- Want to change mode? Run a new setup interview.
- Want to skip an artifact mid-run? Pause the run (in guided/interview mode), or wait until validation, then mark it skipped via a revision pass.
- Want to add a new artifact? Run a new setup interview and approve the new plan.
In practice, plan-edits-after-approval are rare. Most users iterate through validation feedback instead.
Credit cost
The setup interview itself runs on a cheaper model and is short — typical cost is 0.5–2 credits. The composition run is billed separately.
If you cancel during the interview (close the tab without approving), you're only charged for the work the agent did up to that point.
Tips
- Be specific in the Approach field. "Strong technical writing, emphasize our healthcare experience" is much more useful than "make it good".
- Confirm only library docs that actually fit. The agent treats every confirmed attachment as something it should integrate. Confirming a CV that's not relevant adds noise.
- Skip artifacts you don't need. If the RFP suggests a section that doesn't apply to your bid, mark it skipped before approving. It'll save credits during composition.
- Re-run the interview if your strategy changes. A second interview is cheaper than re-doing composition.