COUCHES: AI-Powered Software Design Agent

Software engineering is fundamentally a problem-solving discipline. Yet in theera of AI-assisted development, the bottleneck has shifted: writing code is nolonger the primary challenge. The real difficulty lies in defining, structuring,and validating what to build before a single line of code is written. CurrentAI tools address implementation well—none of them rigorously guide the conception phase that precedes it. We introduce COUCHES, a conversationaldesign agent that bridges the gap between a natural language description of asoftware solution and a complete, structured technical conception ready forAI-assisted implementation. COUCHES enforces a sequential, layered designprocess—from high-level architecture to low-level module design—collectinghuman validation at each step and scoring every decision against a curatedknowledge base of software engineering standards. The output of a sessionis twofold: an interactive visual map of the conceived system, and a structured, noise-free export designed for direct injection into an AI coding tool.COUCHES does not replace the developer. It acts as a permanent technicallayer between human intention and machine execution.