# Projects

> Projects group related chats, apps, threads and artifacts in one place. Bolter groups your work once, then nothing moves unless you ask: you or Omni can make, rename, pin, archive and refresh them.

A project gathers everything that belongs to one piece of work: the chats
where it happens, the apps built for it, the threads and artifacts it
produced. Instead of hunting through your sidebar for the three chats and the
deck that make up a launch, you open the launch's project and it is all
there.

## Opening a project

On a computer, your projects are listed in the picker at the top of the left
sidebar. Point at it or click it, and the panel that opens beside the sidebar
lists them under Projects, each with its unread count. Picking one narrows the
sidebar's list to what the project holds: its chats, apps, files and artifacts,
under the same tabs and day headings as everything else (see
[Your sidebar, your lists and your settings](https://bolter.chat/help/your-sidebar-and-settings)). The main part of the window goes back to
wherever you last were in that project, or to your Home page the first time.
Picking the project you are already in takes you to Home. An empty project
opens its own landing page instead (see "Making, renaming, archiving and
deleting projects" below). While a project is picked, an amber dot on the
picker means something outside it needs you, and the "Back to all content" row
under the list lists the unread chats outside it.

Clicking a row in the narrowed list opens that thing in the main part of the
window, the same as anywhere else in the sidebar. A chat opens as a chat, an
app opens as a running app, and a file or an artifact opens in its viewer.

On a phone or a tablet, opening a project shows its page, which holds
everything in that project: what needs you first, then everything else grouped
by kind. The rest of this section describes that page.

The page is headed by the project itself: its icon, its name, and a line
saying how many chats, people and agents are in it.

It leads with its toolbar, pinned to the top edge: the filter box, the
type narrowing and Add chats. Under the toolbar comes Needs you, then the
project's contents grouped by kind: Apps, then Files, then Artifacts, then
Chats, each under its own heading.

Needs you holds the rows waiting on you, each a question somebody asked and
you have not answered yet, or an agent that is blocked on you. Opening one
opens that chat. If a row is not something you are going to act on, its tick
takes the row off the list without answering anything.
Anything new in that chat brings it back, so the tick means "not this", not
"never this chat".

The row does not disappear straight away. Its place is held for a few seconds
by a line saying "Dismissed" with an Undo beside it, so a tick you did not mean
to press is one tap to take back. Undo puts the row back exactly where it
was. After a few seconds the line goes and the row is off the list.

Each group is newest first, and anything you have pinned leads its group. So
the doc an agent finished this morning is the top row under Artifacts, and a
project with a lot of busy chats does not push its apps and files out of sight.
Apps, Files and Artifacts show their newest two until you press the arrow on
their heading; Chats always show in full. When a project holds only one kind of
thing, or you narrow the list to one kind, the headings go and it is a single
list.

The filter box and the type dropdown stay at the top edge while the rest of the
page scrolls, so the filter box is in the same place however much the project
holds. The filter box is there as soon as the project holds anything, and the
type dropdown (chats, apps, files or artifacts, with "All" as the default)
joins it once the project holds more than one kind of thing to choose between.

Opening a row shows that thing over the page, with the project's name at the
top and Back to return to the list. An app puts its own icon and name in that
top row instead, and beside them the buttons for the app: one that opens it in
your browser, and where you are allowed to see it, one that opens the computer
it runs on. A chat opens as a chat.

## Projects are personal

Projects are your own view of your work. They are not shared: nobody else in
your workspace sees your projects, and putting a chat in a project changes
nothing about who can access that chat. The same chat can sit in one person's
"Launch" project and a teammate's "Q3" project at the same time.

## They organize themselves once, then they are yours

You do not have to file anything to begin with. Bolter groups your related
work into projects for you the first time you use them. It files your chats,
and each chat brings its work along: the apps built or shared in it, and the
files and deliverables made there, land in the same project. Anything not in a
project still shows in the sidebar whenever no project or workspace is
picked, so nothing is ever lost by not being filed.

The first grouping takes a moment, and your projects appear in the picker
when it is done. A very quiet account may not have enough going on to group
yet, in which case your work stays in the unfiltered list until you make a
project yourself.

**After that first grouping, nothing rearranges your projects on its own.**
Bolter will not quietly refile your chats hours later or while you are away.
New chats stay out of every project, showing in the unfiltered list, until you
file them or ask for the grouping to be worked out again.

## Asking for the grouping again

If your projects have drifted from the work you are actually doing, you can
have Bolter group everything again from scratch.

Open the picker at the top of the sidebar (it reads "All workspaces" or the
project or workspace you are looking at). Beside the "Projects" heading in its
panel there are two small buttons: the circular arrow is "Refresh projects",
and clicking it turns the panel into a box explaining what will change. The
grouping only happens when you confirm it there. The plus beside it starts a
new project.

On a phone there is no Projects tab. The filter button beside the search box on
Chats and Library lists your projects under your workspaces: tap one to narrow
both lists to that project, and tap it again to see everything. **New project**
at the end of that list starts a project. "Refresh projects" is not offered on a phone: it is a
desktop-only control. See [Bolter on your phone](https://bolter.chat/help/bolter-on-your-phone).

What a refresh keeps (unless you choose a hard refresh, below):

- Projects you made yourself, with the names and icons you gave them.
- Any chat, app, file or deliverable you filed into a project by hand, or
  pinned, or took out of one.
- Archived projects, and projects you deleted (those are never proposed
  again).
- The order your projects sit in.

What a refresh changes:

- Anything Bolter filed for you can move to a different project. A chat's
  apps, files and deliverables move with it.
- A project Bolter created for you can disappear, if the new grouping no
  longer suggests it and you have not put anything in it yourself.

### Only recent chats

The box asks how far back to look: "Chats active in the last"
3 weeks, 3 months, a year, or any time. It starts at 3 weeks. Chats with
nothing said in them for longer are left out of the new grouping entirely, so
old conversations stop crowding your projects. They stay in your chat list as
always, and you can still file one into a project yourself.

### Hard refresh

A hard refresh starts over from nothing. The Refresh button has a small arrow
beside it, and the arrow only picks which kind of refresh the button will do.
Choose "Hard refresh" there and the button turns red, reads "Hard refresh",
and the box shows a warning, but nothing runs yet. Nothing happens until you
click the button itself.

A hard refresh throws away your own organizing as well:

- Projects you made yourself, and everything in them.
- Anything you filed, pinned or took out of a project by hand.
- Archived projects, and the memory of projects you deleted, so Bolter may
  suggest one of those again.
- The order your projects sit in.

Bolter then groups every chat active within the window you picked in the box.
Unlike the first grouping, it never reaches back past that window on its own,
so on a quiet account pick a longer window first. This cannot be undone. If
Bolter cannot build a new grouping, for example because you have too few
chats in that window or it finds no groups at all, your old projects are left
exactly as they were.

While the refresh runs, your projects stay listed and stay clickable the whole
time, so you are never left waiting at an empty sidebar, and the list updates
in place the moment the grouping is done.

## Making, renaming, archiving and deleting projects

Automatic filing is a starting point, not a rule.

**To make one**, click the pencil at the top of the sidebar and pick **New
project**, or open the picker at the top of the sidebar and press the plus
beside its Projects heading. A box opens beside the sidebar, level with the
picker, for the name, and says what comes after it. The project appears in the
list and opens straight away on its landing page, which offers the two ways to
fill it: describe something new you want to kick off, and your assistant starts
it and files the work in the project, or link chats and apps you already have
from the list on the page (search it to find one). That list offers the apps
you have opened or pinned. To add any app from where you are looking at it,
use the **Add to project** button on its card in a chat, or in the header when
the app is open inside Bolter, and pick the project. Linking a chat puts that
chat in the project and leaves everything else where it is: a file or a
deliverable is in a project because you put it there, so the way to add one is
to right-click its row in the sidebar and choose Add to project (see below).
On a phone the same two offers sit where the project's list will be. Until
something is in the project, picking it from the sidebar opens the same page
again. When your assistant files work into a project it names the project as a
link you can click to open it, and a project page you have open updates as
soon as the work lands in it.

Every project name is your own, so two of your projects cannot share one. If
you try, Bolter says which project already has that name rather than making a
second one you could not tell apart.

**To rename, archive or delete one** on a computer, ask your assistant (see
"Asking Omni" below). On a phone, open the filter button on Chats or Library
and press and hold the project. On a tablet, the same three sit behind the
button with three dots at the right of the project's header. It opens a sheet
from the bottom of the screen with Rename, Archive project and Delete project,
under a row for linking chats or apps to the project. On an archived project
the middle one reads Restore project.

Renaming makes the project yours: a refresh will never rename it, restyle it
or remove it, however the grouping comes out. It can still move the chats it
had filed there for you, and anything you filed in yourself stays put.

Archiving puts the project away. It says the work is finished: the project
keeps everything in it, and you can bring it back whenever you like. Nothing is
lost and nothing is confirmed, because it is undone in one click.

Deleting asks you to confirm first. It says the grouping was wrong in the first
place, and it removes only the grouping. The chats, apps and files that were in
it stay exactly where they are and are still reachable everywhere else. The
project itself cannot be brought back, and Bolter will not propose that
project again.

**To find an archived project**, open Settings and go to Archived. Archived
projects are listed there above your archived chats, with a Restore beside
each one and a count of what each is still holding. On a computer they are also
at the end of the Projects block in the sidebar picker's panel, under "Closed ·
items kept"; click one to reopen it. Restoring puts the project back with
everything it had. While a project is archived Bolter will not propose its name
again, so restoring brings back the project you archived rather than a fresh
one.

## Filing things into a project

On a computer you file by right-click. Right-click a chat, a conversation with
your assistant, or a file, widget, preview or app row in the sidebar, open
**Add to project**, and tick the projects it belongs to. On a chat the menu
also answers T while it is open. A tick means the thing is in that project, so
pressing a ticked project takes it back out again, leaving it untouched
everywhere else. The same menu pins it. **New project…** at the end of that
list starts a project with the thing already in it: the New project box opens
with the thing shown under the name, and the "x" beside it starts the project
without it.

The same chat can live in more than one project, so ticking a second project
does not take it out of the first.

Opening something from a project's chat also files it. With the sidebar picked
to a project, open a widget, live preview, document, deck, diagram, file or
app from a chat that project holds, and it joins the project and shows up in
the sidebar's list straight away, with no trip back to the unfiltered list to
file it. Anything you open from a chat the project does not hold stays out of
it. Something you have removed from a project is never put back by opening it;
add it by hand if you change your mind.

On a phone or a tablet, the "+" button in the project page's own filter row
opens a searchable list of chats and apps to add. Files and deliverables cannot
be added through it.

Automatic filing leaves your conversations with Omni alone. They have their
own place: the Omni tab in the sidebar, which lists every one of them, and the
"+" list does not offer them.

Archiving a chat that is in a project, from the chat's own row menu in the
sidebar, takes it out of your chat list and lists it in Settings under
Archived. It has not left the project: archiving says you are done reading a
chat, not that it was filed wrong, so unarchiving puts it back with everything
it had. Archiving is yours alone: someone else you share the project with
still sees the chat. Your project's files and deliverables stay whatever you do
with the chat that made them.

A chat is renamed from its own title, or from its row in the sidebar:
right-click a chat with an agent, or a group chat, and choose Rename. It is
there when you can rename the chat, and not on a chat with one other person,
whose name is that person's.

Changes you make by hand are sticky. Once you place an item or rename a
project, Bolter respects that choice and never files over it.

## Asking Omni

Your built-in assistant (Omni) can do all of this for you in conversation.
Ask it to "make a project for the website redesign and put those chats in
it", "move the pricing chat into Launch", "rename Q3 to Q3 Planning", "archive
the onboarding project", or "bring back the project I archived last month".

Omni can delete a project too, and it treats that as the serious act it is: if
what you asked for could mean either archiving or deleting, it will ask which
you meant before doing anything. Placements Omni makes on your behalf are
sticky in the same way as your own.

Source: https://bolter.chat/help/projects