Map Value: Workstreams and Work Items

Creating Items with AI

Use Create Items with AI to turn notes, documents, and pasted text into ready-to-edit work items in DevStride.

When you have a block of notes, a requirements doc, or a meeting summary that you want to turn into trackable work, you do not have to type each item by hand. Create Items with AI reads your text, finds the distinct pieces of work in it, and proposes a set of items that you can review, edit, and create in one batch.

What it does

Create Items with AI takes source material that you provide — pasted text, an attached file, or both — and asks DevStride's AI to identify the individual work items it contains. It then presents each suggested item as an editable card so you can refine the wording before anything is created. When you are ready, all of the selected items are created together under a parent location and work type that you choose.

This is a fast way to capture work from existing material without losing the structure and detail already written down in your notes.

Where to find it

Look for the green Item button wherever you add items, and open its dropdown (the small arrow next to the button). Choose Create Items with AI — its caption reads "Find and create items from existing text or documents."

You can reach it from anywhere you can add items, including:

The Items table/module
Boards and the Map
The Child Items tab of an item's drawer (so AI-created items become children of the item you are viewing)

Who can use it

Anyone who can add items can use Create Items with AI. The only role restriction applies to saving reusable templates — see Reusable templates below.

The two-step flow

Selecting Create Items with AI opens the Create Items With AI modal, which walks you through two steps.

Step 1 — Add your source text or files

The first step, Add Source Text or Files, gives you a single unified input. You can:

Paste or type text directly into the box, and/or
Drop or attach a document using the file picker

You can combine both in the same run — for example, attach a document and paste a few extra notes. DevStride reads everything together and treats it as one source.

The file picker accepts a wide range of documents — PDF, Word (.doc / .docx), Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, images, and plain text (.txt, .md) — up to 50 MB, and you can attach one file at a time. DevStride's AI reads the document's content directly (including Word and PDF files), so you no longer need to copy text out of a document before attaching it.

Combine a file with notes

You can attach a document and paste extra context in the same run — DevStride reads them together as one source. For a long or complex document, a clear structure (headings and lists) helps the AI pick out the distinct items.

When your source is ready, click Process with AI. DevStride reads the content and returns a set of suggested items.

Step 2 — Review, set the destination, and create

DevStride now shows you what it found, with a heading such as DevStride found 8 work items. Each suggested item appears as a card that you can:

Select or deselect with its checkbox (only selected items are created)
Edit the Title and Description before creating

Before you create, choose where the items go and what they become. Both selectors are required:

Create Items in Location — the parent item or folder the new items will be created under. The new items inherit their permissions from this location.
Create Items As Type — the work type that all of the generated items will be created as

If the chosen work type has any required custom fields, those fields appear here and must be filled in before you can continue.

When everything looks right, click Create N Items.

One type and one location per batch

Every item in a single batch is created with the same work type and under the same parent location. Create Items with AI does not assign a mix of different item types automatically — if you need different types, run it again for each, or change the type on individual items afterward.

Items are created in the background

Creating the items kicks off a background job, so the new items may take a moment to appear rather than showing up instantly.

Guiding what the AI extracts

By default the AI does a reasonable job of identifying work items on its own. When you want more control, the modal offers two independent sets of options. They do different things and can be used together or separately.

Refine targeting instructions (what to extract)

Turn on Refine Targeting Instructions to tell the AI what kind of items to pull out of your source. This reveals a Targeting Template chip selector with four pre-built starting points:

Action Items
Meeting Notes
Requirements
Bug Reports

You can also pick any template your organization has saved, or choose Create my Own and write free-text instructions describing what to extract (up to 400 characters).

Apply a description template (how each item is formatted)

Turn on Apply a Description Template to control the Markdown structure of each item's description. This reveals a separate Format Template chip selector with four pre-built formats:

Objective
User Story
Bug Report
Task Breakdown

As with targeting, you can choose an organization-saved template or Create my Own. The format is written in Markdown — using ## headers, - bullets, and 1. numbered lists — and can include {placeholders} that the AI fills in. Item descriptions are rendered as formatted Markdown, so the structure you define carries through to the created items.

Two separate template systems

Targeting templates and Format templates are independent. Targeting controls which items the AI finds; format controls how each item's description is structured. Each has its own pre-built set and its own organization-saved set, so don't expect a targeting template to change formatting or vice versa.

Reusable templates

Both the targeting and format selectors let you save your own templates so your team can reuse them.

Pre-built templates are read-only. If you edit the text of a pre-built template, the selection automatically switches to Create my Own rather than changing the original.
Saved templates can be updated. When you edit a template your organization has saved, the selection stays put and the button reads Update Template.
When saving a targeting (extraction) template, you must give it a Name of at least three characters and provide non-empty Extraction Instructions.

Saving templates needs the org-settings permission

Save, Update Template, and Delete for reusable templates require a role whose permissions include managing organization settings (the Manage org settings capability) — by default the Admin and Owner roles have it, and standard Members don't. Anyone who can add items can still select and apply both pre-built and previously saved organization templates, and can type one-off custom instructions — they simply can't persist new ones. (Roles are configurable in Configure Settings → Permissions.)

Limits to keep in mind

The AI extracts roughly 1 to 20 items per run by default. You can ask for more in your targeting instructions, but the hard cap is 100 items.
Item titles are limited to about 100 characters and descriptions to about 2,000 characters.
Free-text targeting instructions are limited to 400 characters.
Only one file can be attached per run, up to 50 MB.
Items are created by a background job, so they may take a moment to appear after you click Create N Items.

Creating Items — add and nest items manually
The Item Workspace Tour — work with an item once it exists

The Items Table

Work with the Items Table data grid: Excel-like navigation, inline hierarchy, sorting and ranking, and column management.

Published Lists

Share a filtered, read-only view of your items with people outside your organization through a public link, with no login required.