Composing a bid
Drafting your vendor bid documents end to end — setup interview, plan approval, AI drafting, and validation.
The bid composition flow drafts your proposal documents from a planned outline. Unlike RFP composition, where you can dive in with just a description, bid composition is structured around an approved plan so the agent always knows what artifacts to produce, in what tone, and with what supporting evidence.
The full flow has three phases:
- Setup interview — a short interview that produces a compose plan (artifact list + mode + tone + format settings).
- Composition — the agent drafts each artifact in turn, pausing for review in guided mode.
- Validation — a two-pass review (coverage + content) that runs automatically when composition finishes.
This page walks through phase 2 and how it links to the other two.
Before you start
Bid composition runs on a specific bid inside a procurement. Before you can launch it:
- The procurement must have its RFP documents uploaded.
- The bid must exist (you've created an entry like "Vendor X").
- The bid must have a setup interview completed and an approved compose plan.
- Your organization must have enough credits.
If you haven't done the setup interview yet, do that first. The composition page will redirect you back to setup if there's no approved plan.
What the agent has to work with
When you approve the plan, the agent gets:
- The RFP documents from the procurement
- The bid's purpose and notes (what you described in setup)
- The compose plan — artifact list, mode, tone, output formats, format strictness
- Library attachments you confirmed during setup (CVs, certifications, past projects, etc.). The system auto-pulls these into the agent's workspace at the start of the run.
- The prep checklist, if one exists, so the agent knows which submittable items it needs to produce or attach
Documents are uploaded into the agent's sandbox at run start. Everything else lives in the database.
Where the RFP provides a fixed form or template for a section, you can tie that document to the RFP-provided form in the plan — the agent then fills the form rather than inventing its own structure.
Composition modes
The mode you picked in the setup interview controls how the agent runs:
| Mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Autopilot | Agent drafts every artifact one after another without pausing. You review the result at the end (or jump straight to the validator). |
| Guided | After each artifact is drafted, the agent pauses and waits for you to review and provide feedback. You click Continue to proceed. Guided is adaptive — it also asks for vendor details during drafting whenever an artifact depends on facts it can't infer from the plan alone. |
You can change the mode in the plan before approving. Once composition has started, the mode is fixed.
Running composition
Approve the plan to launch
On the bid's setup page, click Approve plan. The system creates the composition run and the agent starts working immediately. You're redirected to the bid's composition view.
Watch the activity feed
The right panel shows what the agent is doing in real time — reading RFP files, opening library documents, drafting sections, calling the publish-document tool. The left panel shows the documents being produced and (in guided mode) any clarification questions.
Review when prompted (Guided)
In Guided mode, the agent pauses after publishing each artifact. You'll see the new document in the left panel, plus a clarification panel asking you to review.
You can:
- Read the draft on the Documents tab
- Provide feedback in the clarification panel and click Send Response. The agent picks up your feedback in the next section.
- Click Continue to skip review and let the agent move on.
There's no in-app text editor — you refine the bid through your clarification responses and, later, through validator feedback, not by editing the document text by hand.
Wait for composition to finish
Composition is done when every planned artifact has status published (or skipped if you opted to skip it during the plan). Skipped artifacts produce no document.
When composition completes, the run automatically transitions into validation.
Review validation findings
The validator runs two passes — coverage (any RFP requirements that didn't make it into a section?) and content (filler text, unsupported claims, contradictions). When validation finishes, you'll see findings in the validator UI.
You then have three choices: finalize the bid as-is, dismiss findings you've already addressed, or provide feedback and apply a revision pass to let the agent try again.
Structured clarifications
During a run the agent often needs specific facts about your company — a registration number, a team size, a project reference date, a yes/no on whether you hold a particular certification. Rather than asking for these in free text, it presents a short structured form: a handful of typed fields (text, choice, number, date) for you to fill in. Complete the fields and submit, and composition continues with your answers baked in.
Structured clarifications keep the back-and-forth precise — the agent gets exactly the data it needs in the right shape, and you don't have to guess what format to type.
Documents and requirements
Every composed bid has a Documents tab that lists:
- AI-drafted documents from the plan (downloadable once published)
- Items you attach manually from the prep checklist that no drafted document covers (CVs, certificates, signed declarations, etc.)
The bid is drafted against the RFP's extracted requirements. The Documents tab flags any mandatory requirement that isn't yet covered, so you can see your readiness at a glance before submitting. See RFP requirements for how the requirement set drives this.
This is the tab to use when you're getting close to submission and want to see what's still outstanding.
Downloading the package
Download any single document, or use Download all (ZIP) to export the whole bid package at once. The ZIP includes a readiness summary of what's covered and what's still outstanding, so a reviewer can see the state of the bid without opening the app.
Pausing and resuming
The bid composition flow is fully pausable. If the agent stops to ask a question, the run shows status paused and the sandbox is preserved. There's no time limit — you can answer hours or days later. Resume by responding in the clarification panel.
If the run fails for any reason (system error, model timeout), it shows status failed with an error message and a Continue button. Click Continue to retry from where the run stopped — your already-drafted artifacts are preserved.
Credit cost
Bid composition costs depend on the number of artifacts in the plan and how many turns the agent takes per artifact. Typical ranges:
| Scenario | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Small bid (4–6 artifacts, autopilot) | 5–10 credits |
| Standard bid (8–12 artifacts, autopilot or guided) | 10–25 credits |
| Complex bid (12+ artifacts, guided) | 20–40 credits |
| Plus a revision round | +3–8 credits |
The setup interview and the validator pass are billed separately. See credits and pricing for the full breakdown.
Next steps
- After validation, see compose validation for what to do with the findings.
- When the bid is final, you can run bid analysis on it to see how it compares against the RFP through the analysis pipeline (a useful self-check before submission).
- See the setup interview page for the planning phase that comes before composition.