Turn a client brief into a board your AI keeps current

A client brief is the one moment in a project when everything is written down in one place. This how-to turns that brief into a Listspace board on day one, and sets it up so your AI keeps it current from then on. Paste each sentence in a box below into your AI as it is, or with your own names in it.

What you need

• A Listspace account. Listspace is invite-only while it is in beta, so join the waitlist first if you have no invite.
• Claude on any plan, the free plan too, or ChatGPT on Plus or higher. Other apps work too, see the setup page.
• The brief as text: a document, an email thread or your notes from the kickoff call.

1. Connect your AI

Open a new chat and paste this:

Set up Listspace for me: listspace.app/connect

The page is written for your AI. It works out which app it runs in and gives you the clicks for Claude or ChatGPT. In a coding agent such as Claude Code, it shows you each command and asks before it runs one. You sign in to Listspace in your browser, never in the chat. When it is done, your AI checks the connection and explains agent access in two sentences.

If the Listspace tools do not show up after you sign in, start a new chat and paste the sentence again. The app loads a new connection in a new chat.

2. Make the board from the brief

In the same chat, paste this, then the brief under it:

Make a board for this client project from the Client project template. Put the brief below in the Brief list. Break the work into items in To do, with a due date wherever the brief gives one. Put open questions for the client in Ideas and notes.

Your AI makes the board with six lists: Brief, Ideas and notes, To do, Doing, In review with the client, and Done. It also has two labels, Waiting on client and Billable. If you have more than one space, your AI asks which one the board goes in, or puts it in your default space and tells you where.

The template comes with instructions for your AI, and it follows them in every chat on this board. It reads the Brief list before it starts, moves an item to In review with the client when it needs the client's answer, and keeps internal notes, prices that are not agreed and other clients' names off the board. See Board templates.

A brief tends to change. To keep its versions, open the brief's item, choose More, then Make it a document. From then on, each change is saved as a version you can go back to.

3. Read it once and correct it

Open the board and read it the way you would read a plan from a new colleague. Correct what is off in the chat, in plain words:

Split the homepage item into one for design and one for copy, and set the content migration two weeks before launch.

You can also change anything on the board yourself. Every change shows who made it, you or your AI, in the board's History.

4. Save the decisions in the brief

A brief holds more than tasks. It holds what the client already decided: the launch date, what is in scope, who signs off. Ask for those as decisions:

Save the decisions in this brief, each with its reason.

Your AI proposes each decision on its own, marked with where it came from, and they wait in the board's Inbox. Accept the ones that hold, reject the ones that do not, and choose Not a decision for anything that is worth keeping but was not decided. Accept all first shows which decisions it will confirm, so nothing is confirmed by accident.

Only a person confirms a decision. Your AI works from the confirmed ones in every chat, and a proposed one never counts as decided. See Decisions and How Listspace remembers.

5. Set agent access for this board

Open the board's ⋯ menu, then Board settings, then Agent access. The level decides what your AI may change on its own. Anything it may not do waits in the Inbox for your Accept or Reject.

• Act (4), the level new accounts start at: your AI adds, edits and moves items. Completing, archiving and moving an item to Done wait for you.
• Suggest (2): every change waits for you. Useful on a board the client sees, or in the first week while you get used to it.
• Full (5), on Pro: your AI also ticks off and archives finished items.

In the same window, Instructions for agents holds rules for this board only, for example "Never put prices on this board". Your AI cannot change its own level or these instructions. The guide Choose how much your AI may change shows each screen.

6. Run the first week from the chat

Start each working session by pointing your AI at the board:

Pick up where we left off on the website relaunch board.

Your AI reads the board, the open work and the summaries of its last sessions there, then carries on. After a client call, paste your notes:

Here are my notes from today's client call. Add the new requests to Ideas and notes, comment on the items we discussed, and propose what the client decided as decisions, with the reason.

When you stop for the day:

We are done for today. Leave a summary on the board.

The summary says what changed, what is open and what comes next, and the next chat starts from it, in Claude, ChatGPT or another app you connected. Each morning, For you shows what waits for you across your boards, and the daily summary email lists it too.

7. Show the client where things stand

When the client asks for an update, you have two options:

Write a status report of this board for the client: what was finished this week, what comes next and what waits on the client.

Read it before you send it, as you would any draft. Or share the board itself: open Share, turn on Public link and send it. The client sees the board read only, with no account needed. Check what the board holds before you share it, because anyone with the link sees every list. Run a client project with your AI covers the public link and inviting the client as a guest.

Why start from the brief

A board drifts the moment it and the brief say different things, and someone has to copy the difference across by hand. Building the board from the brief, in the chat where the work will happen, removes that copy step from day one. The first Friday is the test: open the board and compare it with what you remember of the week.