Work in Motriz
Products and the Dashboard
Add a product from an idea or a repository, connect the two later, and read the Dashboard: runs, review, PRs, artifacts, and spend.
Everything you open in Motriz is a product — an idea you are thinking through, or a repository you are continuing. Each product gets up to four destinations in one locked order — Dashboard · Journey · Co-founder · Build — and which of them appear follows what the product is (see Core concepts). Every product opens on its Dashboard; so does every fresh app launch.
Add a product
Open the product switcher at the top of the sidebar and choose Add a product… (the welcome screen offers the same two entry points). The dialog is titled "Add a product." with one instruction: "Start from wherever the product actually is."
The idea path
The idea screen asks for two things, both light:
- Product name · optional
"Name the product, or leave this blank". Left blank, the product is created as "Untitled product" and renamed automatically later from the title of the idea brief your co-founder captures — a deterministic rename, not an extra model call.
- Your co-founder
Pick the model, a reasoning effort, and — on models that support it — a Fast service tier. "Becomes this product’s default. Changeable anytime from the co-founder conversation." See Providers and models.
Create product creates the product and one empty, durable co-founder conversation, then drops you into it.
Creating an idea product sends no message and starts no model run. The dialog says it plainly: "Your co-founder starts only when you begin the conversation."
The repository path
Motriz scans your home directory (up to six levels deep) for Git repositories, skipping build and dependency folders, dot-directories, macOS bundles, and VM or container mounts. Use Rescan to refresh, search to filter, or "Choose another folder…" to pick anything the scan missed (an empty scan offers "Choose a folder…") — the folder does not even need to be a Git repository (Git features simply stay hidden). Each candidate row shows the name, path, branch, and last commit time, plus exactly one status:
| Status | Meaning | Button |
|---|---|---|
| "Not in Motriz" | Motriz has never seen this repository. | Create product |
| "Journey not started" | Already a product, but its journey has not begun. | Start product journey |
| "Journey active" | Already a product with an active journey. | Open product |
For the first two statuses, the setup column asks "What needs direction?" — exactly four options: "Understand why it stalled", "Decide the next product move", "Reshape the product", "Build a known change" — plus the optional "The current constraint" field and the same co-founder setup as the idea path. The footer keeps expectations honest: "Motriz analyzes the repository in the background — normal work stays available. Your co-founder starts when you begin the conversation." And under the list: "The repository stays where it is. Existing history and work are preserved."
A "Journey active" repository gets an open-only screen — "This product is already in Motriz." — confirming "Product journey active", "Existing co-founder", and "Repository remains in place". "Nothing will be created or changed."
Repositories are matched by filesystem identity, so symlinks and macOS case aliases cannot create duplicates. Attaching a repository that already belongs to a product fails with "This repository is already attached to {product name}".
Connecting an idea product to a repository
When the active product is an idea product, the repository flow runs in connect mode: the repository joins that product in place. If the repository already belongs to another Motriz product, the button becomes "Review merge" and Motriz shows a merge review titled "{source} and {target} become one product." It states three rules: "The repository stays where it is", "The journey moves in", and "One product, one co-founder" — nothing duplicated or discarded. Renames appear under "Resolved collisions"; live runs, active tasks, or a knowledge pass pause it ("The merge is paused") until the work settles. Nothing changes until you press "Merge and continue", and old links to the merged-away product redirect to the surviving one.
Rename, remove, and archive
Hover a product row in the switcher for its two actions. Rename opens the "Rename product" dialog — the only manual naming path. Remove from list asks "Remove this product?" and states the split exactly: "“{name}” will be removed from Motriz, along with all of its work, messages, and run history. Repository files on disk are not touched. This cannot be undone." (the repository sentence appears only when the product has one) Removal deletes Motriz's records only — never the folder — and is blocked while runs are active ("Stop active runs in this product before removing it.").
A stopped product's stop record carries an "Archive product" toggle. Archived products leave the main list and appear in the switcher under "Archived" with the subtitle "Archived — open to restore"; opening one restores and selects it. (The sidebar footer's Show archived / Hide archived toggle governs archived work items.)
The Dashboard
The Dashboard is the first destination and the surface every product opens on. It is read-only by design: work is managed and judged under Build; this surface is read, not operated. The heading shows the product name and a meta line — the repository path and current branch when there is one, "{N} work items", and "{N} tasks in queue". On code products the heading also carries a "Start product journey" button, which opens the repository screen with this product preselected — the journey is strictly opt-in, and this is its front door.
The five stat cards
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Active runs | Live agent runs across the product's work, plus tasks that are starting. |
| Waiting review | Finished build work not yet reviewed or merged. The only clickable card — it walks into Build's review list; it is the one counter that asks for you. |
| Open PRs | Distinct open pull requests across the repository's branches. See Git, worktrees, and GitHub. |
| Artifacts | Total artifacts in the product. |
| Spend · 7d | Estimated cost of the product's runs over the last seven days — Providers and models explains how the estimate works. |
Counters refresh every five seconds; branch and pull-request data every sixty.
Running now
While ad-hoc runs are live, a "Running now" strip lists each one with a pulsing dot, its title, and a per-second elapsed timer; clicking a row opens that conversation. Task executions do not appear here — they show in Build's queue. The strip disappears as runs finish.
The artifact gallery
The body of the Dashboard is the product's artifact gallery — every deliverable, as cards grouped by kind. There is no "view all" page because this is all of them. Sections render in a fixed order, skipping empty ones: Briefs · Memos · Research · Plans · PRDs · Prototypes · Specs · Build prompts · Documents · Saved links · Images · Files.
Prototype cards are live: a scaled-down miniature of the real content in an inert frame (scripts blocked), refreshed when the artifact changes. File cards are the one exception to in-app opening — clicking one reveals the file in Finder. Every other card opens the artifact full-container, with the breadcrumb "Dashboard / {title}" as the way back (Esc also closes it); from there document kinds let you copy the content or start build work with the text as the prompt (saved links copy only; prototypes open in an embedded browser instead), and any artifact can be deleted — deletion is disabled while any run is active. Filter chips exist only in the workspace's expanded Artifacts tab, not here. Card anatomy, provenance, and artifact kinds are covered in Workspace and artifacts.
A brand-new product shows "No artifacts yet": "Chat and Product Design can save files of any format alongside reusable prompts, documents, links, images, specs, and prototypes here." If the underlying queries fail, the body reads "Unable to load the dashboard".
The knowledge status chip
The title bar's right side holds one quiet chip — the only visible surface of Motriz's product-knowledge system. "Build product context" starts a background pass; it moves through "Product context queued…", "Building product context…", and "Updating product context…" to "Context ready"; failures show "Context failed · Retry". It runs quietly, and normal work continues throughout.
With and without a repository
The Dashboard is the same surface for every product; a repository only adds to it. Without one, the meta line omits the path and branch and Open PRs stays at zero — the pull-request query is disabled entirely. With one, branch and PR data go live and prototypes are served from real files. Only code products get the "Start product journey" button; journey products already have theirs.