---
title: How Archetype works
description: The ideas behind Archetype: what a brand is, what it holds, how it reaches your agents, and how it stays current.
---

> Source: https://www.heyarchetype.com/docs/how-it-works

Archetype holds one source of truth for your brand and serves it to the AI agents your team builds with. This page explains the model in one pass, with links to the pages that go deeper.

## A brand is a workspace

Everything in Archetype belongs to a brand. A brand has its own library, its own team with roles, its own plan and its own address for agents.

You can hold several, for example one per product or per client. Switch between them from the brand menu in the top bar, and add another from **Settings → General** with **New brand**. Each brand has its own plan, and the free trial is once per person (see [Plans and trial](/docs/billing/plans)).

People join a brand by invitation from **Settings → Team**, as an Owner, Admin, Editor, Creator or Viewer. Connected agents don't take a seat. See [Members and roles](/docs/workspace/team).

## What a brand holds

The sidebar lists the brand's areas under **Brand**, from its foundations out to the things built on them. Icons has no row of its own: it is a card on Foundations.

| Area | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| [Foundations](/docs/brand/foundations) | Colors, gradients, typography, spacing, radius, shadow and logos, served as design tokens, plus the **Icons** card. |
| [Components](/docs/brand/components) | Your UI kit, as real HTML and CSS bound to your tokens, with properties and examples. |
| [Icons](/docs/brand/icons) | The icon sets to use, so agents never reach for arbitrary icons. Opened from Foundations. |
| [Assets](/docs/brand/assets) | Photos, illustrations, files and PDFs, described and tagged so agents can find them. |
| [Artifacts](/docs/brand/artifacts) | Bespoke brand code: backgrounds, patterns, generative graphics and motion. |
| [Templates](/docs/brand/templates) | Finished layouts for social, web, app, email and documents, with slots to fill. |
| [Knowledge](/docs/brand/knowledge) | BRAND.md, company facts and voice documents: the written half of the brand. |

Each item carries a status: **Draft**, **In progress**, **In review**, **Complete** or **Deprecated**. Only finished work leaves the app. An item marked **Complete**, or one nobody has given a status, reaches agents; everything else stays inside Archetype until it is ready. See [Item states](/docs/workspace/states).

## How it reaches agents

### One MCP server per brand

Each brand has its own MCP address, `https://www.heyarchetype.com/api/mcp/<brand-slug>`. You add it to an agent once and sign in in the browser, where you pick the brand and choose whether the agent may change it. Someone with several brands adds one connector per brand. See [Connect an agent](/docs/agents/connect).

The server gives the agent a small set of tools: `get_brand` to read the brand, `search_brand` to find anything in it by keyword, `check_against_brand` to grade work against it, `generate_media` to make new images and video for its library, `create_campaign` to have a whole campaign planned and made, and `update_brand` to change it when you ask. See [MCP tools](/docs/agents/tools).

### BRAND.md routes the work

`get_brand` with no arguments returns the brief, which is where every agent starts. It opens with BRAND.md, the brand's own routing: what the company is, the rules every task follows, and what each kind of work needs. You write BRAND.md in [Knowledge](/docs/brand/knowledge) under **Start here**.

### Read an index, then the detail

`get_brand` reads one domain at a time. Called bare, a domain returns an index: every item with the handle that fetches it. Called again with a handle, it returns the item itself, such as a component's real HTML and CSS or an artifact's source to use verbatim. The domains are `brief`, `info`, `tokens`, `assets`, `components`, `icons`, `artifacts`, `templates`, `files`, `voice` and `schema`.

When the brand has no value for something the agent needs, the server tells it to use the nearest value the brand does define and to say so in its output. A gap gets reported instead of filled in quietly.

The same brand also leaves Archetype as files, for repositories and tools that don't connect over MCP: a brand markdown file, tokens as JSON, a downloadable bundle and installable skills. See [DESIGN.md, BRAND.md and skills](/docs/agents/files) and [The CLI](/docs/developers/cli).

## The loop

A brand in Archetype is never finished. The work moves in a loop:

1. **Import.** Bring the brand in from a website, a Figma file or your code, or let a connected agent import it. See [Import overview](/docs/import/overview).
2. **Review.** Look over what came in, fix what the import got wrong, and fill the gaps.
3. **Set states.** Mark what is ready as **Complete**, and keep work in progress out of your agents' reach.
4. **Agents use it.** Every connected agent reads the current brand on every call. Change a token in Archetype and the next build uses it.
5. **Check.** Agents grade their own work with `check_against_brand`, and you can hold a page, file or screenshot up against the brand on the **Check** page. See [Check](/docs/create/check).
6. **Agents propose changes.** An agent you allowed to edit can add to the brand when you ask. By default each change waits as a draft in History until someone applies or discards it. See [Changes from agents](/docs/agents/drafts).
7. **History keeps it all.** Every edit, by a person or an agent, is logged with its before and after, and can be undone. Save named versions of the whole brand to compare and restore. See [History and versions](/docs/workspace/history).

You can also make things inside Archetype with the same brand: designs, images and video on the **Create** page, or a whole campaign of them from one brief. See [Designs](/docs/create/designs) and [Campaigns](/docs/create/campaigns).

## Next steps

:::cards
- [Quickstart](/docs/quickstart): Set up a brand and connect your first agent.
- [Connect an agent](/docs/agents/connect): Add your brand to the agent you build with.
- [Import overview](/docs/import/overview): Choose the right way to bring your brand in.
:::