Workmate: your AI assistant for planning, refinement, and reporting

Workmate helps teams move faster through the planning steps that usually slow momentum — writing cards, structuring tasks, refining details, and understanding the state of the board.

What Workmate can do

Workmate is Flying Donut's built-in AI assistant. It works inside your project context — it understands your backlog, board, sprint, and cards — and can help with four key workflows:

  • Generate backlog cards from a short text brief or feature description
  • Break an existing card into practical, actionable tasks
  • Refine card titles, descriptions, and acceptance criteria
  • Answer questions about the current state of the board, sprint, or backlog

Generating cards from a brief

Start with a rough idea — a product brief, a feature request email, or a few bullet points from a meeting — and ask Workmate to generate structured backlog cards. Workmate creates cards with clear titles, descriptions, and acceptance criteria that you can review, edit, and add to the backlog.

  • Describe what you want to build in plain language
  • Workmate generates multiple cards covering different aspects of the work
  • Review each card and accept, edit, or discard it
  • Accepted cards are added to the backlog bucket of your choice

Example: A product manager types: "We need a password reset feature. Users should request a reset via email, receive a link with a time-limited token, and set a new password. Include validation and error handling." Workmate generates four cards: "Implement reset token generation", "Design password reset email template", "Build reset password form with validation", and "Add rate limiting to reset requests".

Breaking cards into tasks

Select a card and ask Workmate to break it into tasks. Workmate reads the card title, description, and acceptance criteria, then generates a task list with titles and optional time estimates.

  • Works best when the card has a clear description and acceptance criteria
  • Generated tasks include practical, actionable titles
  • Review and adjust estimates before accepting
  • Tasks are added to the card and appear on the sprint task board

Example: For a card titled "Users can upload profile photos", Workmate might generate: Add file upload endpoint (3h), Validate image format and size (2h), Store image in cloud storage (2h), Display profile photo in header and profile page (2h), Write unit and integration tests (3h).

Refining card content

Workmate can improve existing card text — making titles clearer, adding missing acceptance criteria, improving description structure, or rephrasing for consistency. This is especially useful during backlog refinement when you want to upgrade the quality of many cards quickly.

  • Ask Workmate to rewrite a vague title into an outcome-focused one
  • Generate acceptance criteria from a description
  • Improve description structure with headers, steps, and expected results
  • All refinements are suggestions — you review and accept before changes are applied

Asking questions about your project

Workmate can answer questions about the current state of your board, sprint, or backlog. Instead of manually scanning the board and counting cards, ask Workmate for a quick summary.

  • 'How many cards are in progress?' — Workmate scans the board and summarizes
  • 'What is the sprint burndown status?' — Workmate reports remaining hours and trend
  • 'Which cards are blocked?' — Workmate lists all blocked cards with their impediment context
  • 'Summarize what was completed this sprint' — Workmate generates a sprint review summary

Example — Sprint review prep: Before a sprint review meeting, the scrum master asks Workmate: "Summarize what was completed in this sprint and list any cards that were not finished." Workmate generates a ready-to-share summary with completed cards, remaining work, and key metrics.

AI credits and credit packs

Workmate usage is measured in AI credits. Each interaction — generating cards, breaking down tasks, refining content, or answering questions — consumes credits based on the complexity of the request.

  • Paid plans include a monthly allocation of AI credits
  • Credit consumption is visible so you always know where you stand
  • Optional AI credit packs can be purchased for extra capacity during heavy planning periods
  • Credit packs are one-time purchases — no subscription required
  • Unused pack credits carry over until consumed

See Pricing for plan details and credit pack options.

Responsible AI: teams stay in control

Workmate is designed as a productivity assistant, not a replacement for team judgment. Every AI-generated suggestion is presented for human review before being applied.

  • All generated content is a suggestion — you accept, edit, or discard
  • Workmate does not modify cards or tasks without explicit confirmation
  • AI usage is transparent through credit tracking
  • Workmate supports planning quality without replacing product thinking

Common questions

Does Workmate have access to my code or external data?+
No. Workmate only reads your Flying Donut project data — cards, tasks, descriptions, and board state. It does not access code repositories, external files, or other systems.
Can I use Workmate on the free plan?+
Workmate availability depends on the plan. Check the pricing page for details on AI credit allocations per plan.
What happens when I run out of credits?+
You can purchase an AI credit pack for additional capacity. Credit packs are one-time purchases and do not expire.
Can Workmate generate content in languages other than English?+
Workmate works best in English but can generate and refine content in other languages with reasonable quality.

Let Workmate help your team plan faster

From rough idea to structured backlog cards in minutes. Workmate handles the planning busywork so your team can focus on delivery.