# Projects & sources

A project is two things: a folder of documents, and the chats you have about
them. There's no separate "library" or "upload area" — the folder *is* the
knowledge base.

## Two ways to start a project

Both start from the project menu — click the project name at the bottom of
the sidebar.

- **Open an existing folder.** Choose **Open folder…** and pick a directory
  you already keep documents in — Documents, a client's folder, a research
  archive. Axon reads everything in it where it is and never copies anything
  out of it. Opening the same folder again brings back the same project.
- **Create a new project and add files.** Choose **Create new project**, then
  click the `+` button in the chat composer. Under **Add to sources**, choose
  **Add files** for one or more existing files, or **Add a folder** for a
  whole folder at once:

  ![The composer's + menu, open, showing Add files and Add a folder under Add to sources, and the Search connectors below](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/screenshots/composer-add-sources-menu.png)

  The first file you add creates a folder for the project automatically
  (under the projects location set in **Settings → General → Projects**);
  every file after that goes into the same folder. The same menu's **Search**
  section is for searching the web or a connected drive instead — see
  [How to: Set up web search for connectors](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/set-up-web-search-for-connectors).

You can also **paste a screenshot** (or any copied image) while a project is
open: it's saved into the project's folder as a new source, and its text is
read with on-device OCR.

Either way, the folder a project points at is the one and only place its
sources live. There's no hidden second copy — the file you see in Finder or
Explorer is the file Axon reads.

## What gets indexed

Everything in the project's folder, recursively, except:

- Hidden (dot-) folders.
- Anything matched by the project's **Excluded files** — gitignore-style
  rules you set in **Manage project… → General**. Use them to keep drafts,
  exports, or a subfolder you don't want searched out of the index without
  moving it out of the folder. See [How to: Exclude files or a subfolder from
  indexing](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/exclude-files-or-a-subfolder-from-indexing).

## Scanning and indexing

Files you add with **Add files** or **Add a folder** (or by pasting) are
indexed automatically a couple of seconds later — there's nothing to press.

Changes made *outside* Axon — a file edited in Word, one dropped into the
folder in Finder or Explorer — are noticed when you switch back to Axon, and
the card above the file list offers to update the index. Files deleted
outside Axon are removed from the index too.

Opening a whole folder never indexes it automatically — you decide when. Axon
scans it and shows what it found (how many files, what's new, changed, or
gone) in a card above the file list, with no work done yet; the button on
that card is what actually starts it — labelled **Index these sources**,
**Update index**, or **Add exact-word search** depending on what's
outstanding.

A file is only re-processed when it actually changed (by size and
modification time, falling back to content if those look the same) — so
touching a file, or a sync client rewriting its timestamp, doesn't trigger a
full re-index.

Large folders and scanned PDFs (which go through on-device OCR) can take a
while; you'll see a progress bar with the current file and stage while a run
is in flight, and you can stop it from the same card.

## Project instructions

Each project has **Project instructions** (**Manage project… → Project
instructions**) — standing guidance added to every chat in that project. Use
it for things like "always answer in bullet points" or "this project covers
only the 2024 fiscal year." See [How to: Give a project standing
instructions](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/give-a-project-standing-instructions).

## Deleting a project

Deleting a project (**Manage project… → Danger zone**) forgets it in Axon —
its chats and its search index — and always leaves your folder and its files
exactly as they were. See [How to: Delete a project](https://exaflux.io/docs/axon/how-to/delete-a-project).

The **Axon User Guide** project — this guide, inside the app — can't be deleted or renamed — it's
your built-in reference and stays first in the project list.