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Design your first architecture with Archie

Updated November 1, 2026Plans: Free, Pro, Enterprise

Overview

Archie is the assistant on the ArchFoundry canvas. You describe the system you want to run, and Archie draws it as cards and lines, each card priced at AWS's own rates. Nothing is created in your AWS account until you deploy and approve a plan.

Prerequisites

  • An ArchFoundry account. Archie is on every plan: Free, Pro and Enterprise. Create an account if you do not have one.
  • Nothing else. You do not need an AWS account or a repository to design. You only need one to deploy.

Steps

  1. Sign in at app.archfoundry.ai.
  2. Open the canvas at app.archfoundry.ai/app. On an empty canvas, Archie's message box sits in the middle of the screen, under Sketch something new.
  3. Click the box labelled Describe, edit, or ask… and type what you want to build. To start from an example, click Web app with a database, Queue-backed workers or Static site behind a CDN instead.
  4. Press Enter to send. To add a line break without sending, press Shift+Enter.
  5. Wait while Archie shows working…. When it finishes, the cards are on the canvas and Archie replies with what it drew.
  6. To change the design, type the change in the same box. To point at one card, type @ and pick that card from the list.
  7. When Archie offers buttons under its latest reply, click one to send it as your next message.
  8. When Archie's reply has code, it sits in its own block with the language named at the top. Click Copy to put the code on your clipboard. The button reads Copied for two seconds. A block longer than 40 lines is folded, so click Expand all to read the rest, and Collapse to fold it again.

Example

Paste this prompt into the message box to draw a typical web application:

text
A load balancer in two zones, a container service behind it, and a managed
Postgres in private subnets for <your-project-name>. Keep it as cheap as it
can be while still surviving the loss of one zone.

Change <your-project-name> to the name of your service. Archie uses it to name the cards.

Expected result (Archie's exact layout varies from one answer to the next): a VPC drawn as a container, with public and private subnets in two availability zones. Inside it are a load balancer, a container service and a Postgres database in the private subnets, joined by lines that show which card can reach which. Each card shows its projected monthly price.

Verify it worked

  • The canvas shows cards for each part of your prompt, inside a VPC.
  • Each card that AWS bills by the hour shows a price per month.
  • Archie's reply names what it drew and why, for example why the database sits in a private subnet.
  • Bold text, lists, headings and tables in the reply show as formatting, with no stray ** or # characters.

Troubleshooting

The header next to Archie says demo mode, or the examples are greyed out. Archie is not enabled on the server you reached. Check that you are on app.archfoundry.ai and signed in.

Archie asks Before Archie reads this diagram. This appears on diagrams you imported from Terraform or drew from a connected AWS account. It lists what is sent to Archie's AI provider. Click Allow and send to continue, or Cancel to keep your message without sending it.

Archie says your organization's daily budget is used up. Archie's AI use is included within a daily allowance per organization. The allowance resets at midnight UTC. An organization that adds its own Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter key has no allowance.

Archie's reply shows a plain link or no picture. Replies show only web links (https), email links and links within ArchFoundry. Other links show as plain text, and images and raw HTML are left out.

Archie declines part of a request. Archie only draws cards that ArchFoundry can deploy. Its reply says which part it left out. Ask for the closest service it offers.

Next steps