DEV Community

Mateo Perez Salazar
Mateo Perez Salazar

Posted on

I built a planning CLI for AI coding agents. Some developers like the idea, but nobody has bought Pro. What am I missing?

I’m building Archseed, and I’ve reached an uncomfortable point: some developers like the idea, a few have tried it, but nobody has bought the Pro plan.

Rather than post another feature announcement, I’d like to understand what I might be getting wrong.

The problem I’m trying to solve
When you give a coding agent an incomplete request, there are decisions it still needs to make:

What belongs in V1?

What should explicitly stay out?

Which architectural patterns should it follow?

Which assumptions need your approval before implementation?

My hypothesis is that making those decisions explicit before coding can help avoid unwanted scope and architectural choices.

For example, “build a booking app” leaves a lot unanswered. Does V1 need payments? Multiple businesses? Customer accounts? An agent can produce a plausible implementation without those decisions matching what you intended.

What Archseed does
Archseed is a CLI-first tool that guides you through scope, constraints, and architecture decisions, then generates structured project files you can use with your coding agent.

It’s not another coding agent, and it isn’t meant to replace your IDE.

An important limitation: generating Markdown does not automatically enforce architecture or guarantee that an agent will follow every decision. I don’t want to pretend otherwise.

Where I’m stuck
There’s a free workflow, and the current Pro beta is $12/month.

Some people have responded positively, but that hasn’t translated into paid users. Recent outreach also hasn’t led to many new trials.

I don’t yet know whether:

The problem isn’t painful enough.

The benefit isn’t clear enough to justify trying another tool.

Developers already solve it well enough with their agent’s planning workflow and project instructions.

A subscription is the wrong fit for something they mainly need when starting a project.

I don’t want to assume that lowering the price would fix the underlying issue.

What I’d like to learn
If you use coding agents, when was the last time one made a scope or architectural decision you had to undo? How did you handle it?

And looking at Archseed’s approach, what—if anything—would it add to your current workflow?

“I already handle this with my coding agent” is useful feedback too, especially if you can explain how.

You don’t need to install anything to reply. I’m more interested in understanding your experience than collecting signups.

Project: Archseed

Top comments (0)