Blueprints

A Blueprint is a structured architecture artifact generated by Catio. It describes a change from current state to target state, connects that change to relevant system and business context, explains the reasoning and impact behind it, and provides an implementation path.

Blueprints are the shared artifact layer for architecture guidance in Catio. They give teams a clear, reviewable way to move from architecture questions, goals, risks, requirements, and opportunities into decisions that can be reviewed, refined, organized, and executed.

A Blueprint may be created because Catio identified an improvement opportunity, or because you asked Catio to design a specific change. In both cases, the output is a Blueprint. The type determines how the Blueprint is framed.

Blueprints help teams:

• Align around a shared architecture direction
• Connect business goals to technical decisions
• Understand the gap between current state and target state
• Evaluate reasoning, tradeoffs, risk, ROI, and impact
• Turn architecture decisions into implementation plans
• Preserve the rationale behind important technical choices
• Organize related architecture work into audits, collections, and plans Carry decisions forward into execution with more confidence

For more information on each type of Blueprint see Recommendations and Designs.

How It Works

Catio analyzes two primary inputs to generate blueprints:

1. Stacks Module Data: Information about your current architecture and historical tech investments
2. Workspace Context: Details about your business goals and constraints

Using these inputs, Catio employs a multi-agent AI system that represents both Architects and Employees as AI agents working together to generate highly personalized blueprints.

Types of Blueprints

Recommendation

A Recommendation is a system-identified improvement opportunity.

Use a Recommendation when Catio has found a change that may improve your architecture, reduce risk, reduce cost, improve performance, simplify the system, or better align the environment with your goals.

A Recommendation is persuasive in posture. It leads with the case for action.

Recommendations typically emphasize:

• The current gap, risk, or opportunity
• Why the change matters
• Expected benefit or ROI Impact of acting or not acting
• Suggested target state Implementation path

Example prompts:

Find opportunities to reduce AWS costs.

What architecture risks should we address before scaling this product?

Identify reliability improvements for our checkout flow.

Design

A Design is a user-initiated or user-committed architecture change request.

Use a Design when you already know what you want to build, migrate, modernize, or specify, and you want Catio to produce an execution-ready architecture artifact.

A Design is specifying in posture. It leads with the target solution and how to execute it.

Designs typically emphasize:

• Requirements
• Target architecture
• Alternatives considered
• Tradeoffs
• Technical and business impact
• Rollout and reversibility Implementation plan
• Handoff context for engineering or execution agents

Example prompts:

Design a migration from Cognito to Auth0.

Turn this PRD into an architecture design.

Spec out a payment processing system based on the attached requirements.

Generating a Blueprint

From the Blueprints page, describe what you want to build or improve in the prompt input. You can refine your request before submitting by adjusting:

• Scope: Defines the boundaries of the blueprint.
• Focus: Narrows the blueprint toward specific outcomes or areas.

Suggested prompts (e.g., Migrate to event-driven architecture, Reduce AWS costs, Attach PRD/Spec) are available as starting points.

1. In the input box, describe what you want to improve, optimize, or build. For best results, include priorities, constraints, timeframe, and business goals. File attachments can be included, which can be used to include requirements, a PRD or other additional context.

   Example: "Improve our API security posture over the next quarter. Priority is reducing public-facing attack surface. Budget is limited to existing tooling."

2. Set the Scope to target a specific area or keep the default of Full Architecture.

3. Set the Focus to narrow by architecture domain or keep the default of All.

4. Click the submit button. After about 30 seconds, an outline will be presented. If it looks good, click Generate Blueprint.

This should then take 15-20 minutes to generate!

Archie will analyze your environment and generate targeted blueprints. Once complete, they will appear in the Blueprints tab where you can review, filter, and organize them. For a full walkthrough of what to do next, see How to Best Utilize Recommendations

Browsing Blueprints

The Blueprints table displays all generated blueprints with the following columns:

• Title: The name of the blueprint.
• Main Benefit: The primary benefit category (e.g., Cost Performance, Performance, Security and Compliance).
• Type: The classification of the entry (e.g., Recommendation).
• ROI: Return on investment, where available.
• Created: When the blueprint was generated.

Expand any row to preview the blueprint's description, or click View Full Blueprint to open the full view.

Structure of a Blueprint

Each blueprint is organized into the following sections, accessible from the On this page navigation:

• Summary: High-level overview of the blueprint and its purpose.
• Benefit: The primary advantage the blueprint delivers (e.g., cost performance, security and compliance).
• Impact: Expected outcomes and measurable effects of implementation.
• Target State: The optimal architecture state the blueprint moves you toward.
• Gap Analysis: Evaluation of the delta between your current architecture and the target state, including issues, limitations, and differences.
• Business Impact: Strategic and financial implications of the blueprint.
• Implementation Plan: Required actions and steps to move from the current to the target state.

Blueprint Actions

From a full blueprint view, you can:

• Add tracking link: Attach an external link to track the blueprint's progress.
• Add to Plan: Add the blueprint to a list, such as Bookmarks or a custom Plan. You can create a new list directly from the modal.
• Edit with Archie: Refine the blueprint collaboratively with Archie, Catio's AI assistant.