Project files

A project file is an editable Design Lab or Animation workspace saved as one .glyphfield.json file. Design Lab is the layered composition tool and Animation is the scene sequencer. PNG, JPG, GIF and MP4 files are rendered outputs. A project file keeps the layers, so someone else can continue editing.

Download a project file

Choose File → Download project file in the tool header. In Design Lab, the export dialog also offers it as Project file in its Editable project section. Design Lab captures the current shader appearance of the active artboard and prepares one JSON download. You do not need to render a PNG first.

A Design Lab project file contains:

• Every artboard with its name, position and dimensions, and which artboard is active.
• The loose canvas layers.
• Editable layers with stable IDs, order, transforms, groups, locks, text and text runs, colors, converter and image effect settings, and shader recipes.
• Embedded image and logo bytes, including images used only by inactive artboards.
• Saved shader PNGs and native frame state from every artboard.
• Timeline, export settings, brand ID and document metadata.
• Embedded brand font files, typography roles, variable font weights and text metrics.

Inactive artboards keep their saved state. Downloading does not run their renderers and does not create captures that are missing. A saved PNG keeps the captured pixels. A Fluid simulation does not resume from a saved PNG, and procedural shaders can render slightly differently on another GPU.

An Animation project file contains the scenes, artboards, timing, keyframes, text entrances, backgrounds, audio clips, the image and audio bytes they use, and the brand font files and typography roles.

The file is the existing CanvasDocument schema 2. Design Lab files have metadata.tool: "design-lab" and Design Lab metadata source version 4. Animation files have metadata.tool: "animation-studio" and metadata.animation. There is no separate project schema. The MIME type is application/json.

Open a project file

The file picker accepts .glyphfield.json, .json and application/json. The size limit is 128 MiB (134,217,728 bytes). Opening validates the file in the browser and does not fetch URLs found in the file. A file with missing embedded images or fonts, invalid base64 data or invalid canvas data fails with an error and opens nothing.

Imported typography applies only to the workspace that opened the file. The receiving brand keeps its identity and unrelated settings. The typography snapshot is stored with the document, so it survives reloads and later downloads. If a typography role has no font file, the download stops with an error that asks you to add the font file. Older CanvasDocument files without a typography snapshot use the typography of the receiving workspace.

Agents

const studio = window.glyphfield.studio;
const project = await studio.invoke('design.export.project');
if (!(project.blob instanceof Blob) || project.blob.size === 0 || !project.fileName.endsWith('.glyphfield.json')) {
  throw new Error('Invalid project file');
}
studio.download(project);

// Reopen the same bytes through the file control of Design Lab.
await studio.set('Choose project file', new File([project.blob], project.fileName, { type: 'application/json' }));

Animation uses animation.export.project. Setting the file control starts the import and returns before it finishes. Before you call readSource(), wait for the status message "Opened" followed by the file name or for the Could not open project error. The Browser API (window.glyphfield.studio) reaches only the controls of the active tool, so it cannot use Add brand project. To open a file as a new project, a browser automation tool clicks Add brand project, chooses Import project… and passes the file to the file chooser.

Scope

A project file holds one workspace. It is not a backup of every brand, tool, checkpoint history or browser setting. It includes the fonts and typography that the design needs, and leaves out the rest of the brand library.

To back up a whole project, see Backup and restore. To change the JSON directly, use File → Edit source code and the source editing workflow.