Projects

A project is just a folder on disk containing .md files and subfolders, marked with a .smaragd/project.json file. There’s no proprietary bundle format — you can open the folder in any other editor, sync it with any tool, and everything still works.

• File > New Project opens a template picker, then a native folder picker; it creates the folder, marks it as a project, and scaffolds in whatever the chosen template provides. If the folder you pick is already empty, the project is created directly in it — there’s no separate name prompt, since the folder’s own name already says what the project is called. Pick a non-empty folder instead (to hold the new project as a subfolder of it) and you’ll get the usual name prompt.
• File > Open Project opens a native folder picker. If you point it at a folder smaragd hasn’t used before, it offers to adopt the folder in place (writing the .smaragd marker) rather than refusing.
• File > Close Project (or Ctrl+Shift+W) saves every open document (and any open Story Card draft) that has unsaved changes, then closes the project entirely — no save/discard/cancel prompt, same silent-autosave convention as Close Document. The Binder and every other dock tab return to their empty, no-project state, and a later “Reopen project on launch” won’t bring this project back, since closing it is a deliberate choice to leave it behind. Only enabled while a project is open.
• With no project open, the Binder panel shows New Project / Open Project buttons in place of the empty binder — the first time you’ve ever opened a project in smaragd, New Project defaults to the World-Building template (see below) instead of Blank.
• .smaragd/project.json stores things the filesystem can’t express on its own — manuscript ordering, folder roles, whether plugins/git are enabled for this project. If that file’s contents ever get corrupted, smaragd falls back to defaults rather than erroring; only a missing marker means “this isn’t a project yet.”

File > Settings has a “Reopen project on launch” option. With it on, Smaragd comes back exactly as you left it: the same document (or, with multi-tab editing on, every tab that was open) with the cursor where it was — including any unsaved edits a tab still had, restored rather than lost — the same binder selection and collapsed folders, Focus Mode if you were in it, and the window’s size and position (position isn’t restored on Wayland, which doesn’t let apps choose it). The dock layout and all settings are always kept between launches, whether this option is on or not. There’s also a separate “Ensure Research and Trash folders exist in every project” option (off by default) that creates those two role folders automatically whenever you open a project, recreating them at their original path if they were deleted since.