Project folder

Download a project as one organized folder of ordinary files. It holds what is on the canvas when you download it, ready to keep working with on your computer.

What you get

One ZIP file, named after the project. Inside it is a single folder with the same name: a guide called START HERE.md, then a folder for each kind of block the project contains.

Example — a small project

Ember Gambit/
  START HERE.md
  Notes/
    Direction.md
  Text blocks/
    Ember Gambit.txt
  Documents/
    board.md
  Images & assets/
    Battle concept.webp
  Links/
    References.md
  Tasks/
    Finalize the logo.md
    Prepare App Store and Google Play.md
    Prototype 8 × 8 board movement.md
  Chats/
    Icon direction · 24 Aug 2026.md

What you wrote arrives as Markdown and plain text. Images, videos and PDFs arrive as the files themselves. Nothing in the folder needs PlansFlow to be opened or read.

Download a project

Open the project's canvas. Its name stands in the header beside a folder icon, next to the projects drawer.
Select the name. The project opens as a list of files: search it, or open any file to read it in place.
Select Download project. The ZIP is prepared in your browser and saved with your other downloads.

The gear beside the button opens Filters, with one checkbox for each folder. Clear a folder and it stays out of the ZIP; START HERE.md is rewritten to describe only what you kept. The choice holds for the session.

Downloading only reads the project. It changes nothing on the canvas, runs no model, and costs no credits.

How the folder is organized

Blocks are sorted by kind, always in the same order. A folder appears only when the project has something to put in it.

In the folder	From the canvas	Files
START HERE.md	Written by the download	Always first
Notes/	Note blocks	One .md each
Text blocks/	Text and heading blocks	One .txt each
Documents/	Markdown blocks, documents, search answers, PDFs	.md and .pdf
Images & assets/	Images and videos	The original files
Links/	Link cards and YouTube blocks	References.md
Tasks/	Task blocks	One .md each
Chats/	Saved conversations	One .md each

A file takes its name from its block: the title, or the first six words. Characters a file system would refuse are removed, a name stops at 80 characters, and a second file with the same name gets (2).

Links are gathered rather than copied: References.md lists the title and URL of every link card and YouTube block, once each. A search answer keeps its sources as a numbered list at the end of its file. A saved conversation is named by its title and the date it was last updated; one with no title of its own takes the first words of your first message. A chat block on the canvas gets a folder of its own, with Conversation.md and, where the chat used sources, Sources.md.

START HERE.md

Every download begins with this file. It gives the project's name and description, counts the files and folders in the download, lists the folders that are present, and ends with the date of the download. It is written to be read first, by a person opening the folder or by a model given it as context.

Example — START HERE.md, shortened

# Ember Gambit

A chess-inspired RPG for iPhone and Android.

This folder is the whole project as it stands on the PlansFlow
canvas: 10 files in 7 folders. Read this guide first, then open
only the folders your task needs.

…

## Continuing with another model

Treat these files as the current state of the project. Keep its
direction unless you are asked to change it, and cite
Links/References.md when a claim depends on an outside source.

---

Exported from PlansFlow · 1 Oct 2026

Tasks and progress

Each task block becomes its own Markdown file, and its state goes with it as a checkbox: checked when the task is completed, empty when it is not. A task marked in progress says so on the same line, and a description, if the task has one, follows underneath.

Example — a completed task

# Finalize the logo

- [x] Finalize the logo

Example — a task in progress

# Prepare App Store and Google Play listing materials

- [ ] Prepare App Store and Google Play listing materials · In progress

The folder therefore shows what is finished beside what is still to do, in a form that people and tools both read as a task list.

Using the folder

The folder is ordinary files, so it works wherever files do. Two uses are equally at home.

A new project — unzip it and open the folder in the tool you work in; Claude, Codex and Cursor are examples. Have it read START HERE.md first.
Part of a project you already have — put the folder where that project keeps its notes or documentation. It adds context to what is there, and does not need to become the project's root.

After that the folder is yours to rename, edit, split up, or keep under version control.

PlansFlow does not connect to those tools or send them anything. You move the folder yourself, and you decide what reads it.

A snapshot, not a sync

A download is the project as it stood at that moment. Later changes on the canvas do not reach a folder you have already downloaded, and edits made in the folder do not return to the canvas. For the current state, download again; each copy carries its date at the end of START HERE.md.

Limits

Layout stays behind. Blocks are grouped by kind; their positions on the canvas and the connections between them are not written into the folder.
Links are references. The page behind a link card and the video behind a YouTube block are not downloaded.
Freehand drawings are left out unless they have been made into an image. Text engine and Image engine blocks are left out too; the text and images they produced are included, as the blocks they became.
Empty blocks are skipped, and so is an image that has not finished uploading.
A file that cannot be fetched when you download is left out, and named under Missing files in START HERE.md. The rest of the folder is unaffected.
Very long chat histories may be cut short.
There is no way back in: a folder cannot be imported to rebuild a canvas.

More kinds of block may join the download over time. This page describes what it holds today.

Something unclear or missing? Write to [email protected].