A project is the container for one story world — its manuscripts, entities, canon rules, timeline, and validation runs all live inside it.

When to use this

Create a new project when you start work on a distinct story — a standalone novel, a series, a screenplay, a game’s narrative, or a shared universe. Everything you upload and every entity PlotLens extracts is scoped to one project, so each story world stays isolated from the others.

If you’re co-writing or running a writers’ room, create the project inside a team so collaborators can share the same canon. Personal projects stay private to your account.

How it works

Each project owns its own documents, extracted entities, canon rules, timeline events, and validation sessions. When you delete a project, all of those go with it.

Projects can belong to your personal workspace or to a team you’re a member of. The project list you see is scoped to the team you’re currently active in — switch teams and the list switches with it. If you open a project that lives on a different team, PlotLens will switch you over automatically.

Every project gets a URL slug (for example, /projects/dawnwatch-saga). Slugs are unique within a workspace and are auto-generated from the name, but you can edit them in settings.

Projects list overview

How to create a project

From the dashboard, click Create Your First Project — or open Projects in the sidebar and click New project.
Step 1 — Project Details. Enter a Name (1–100 characters, required). Optionally add a Description (up to 500 characters), pick a Team if you want to share it, choose Genres, pick a Template, and edit the auto-generated Slug (lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens only).
Step 2 — Documents. Drag and drop your manuscripts, outlines, or reference materials into the upload zone. You can also skip this step and add documents later.
Step 3 — Processing. Watch live progress as PlotLens parses each document. When processing finishes, you’ll land on the project overview.

The slug field checks availability as you type (debounced, so give it a beat). If the name you want is taken, PlotLens suggests alternatives.

Create project wizard — step 1

Organize and find projects

The projects list at /projects gives you everything you need to find a project quickly:

Search. Filter by name or description.
Sort. Order by Last modified, Name, or Date created.
Status filter. Show All, Active, Processing, or Draft.
View toggle. Switch between Grid and Table layouts.
Pin. Pin frequently used projects to the top of your list (stored locally on your device).
Pagination. 9 projects per page.

Projects list with filters

Edit project settings

Open a project and click Settings to change:

Name — 1–100 characters.
Description — up to 500 characters.
Slug — lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens; checked for availability before save.
Visibility — Private, Team, or Public. New projects are Private by default; visibility is editable only after creation.
Genres — pick from the predefined list.

You need Owner, Admin, or Editor access on the project’s team to edit settings.

Delete a project

In Settings, scroll to the danger zone and click Delete project. You’ll be asked to confirm.

Deleting a project is destructive. It cascades to every document, entity, canon rule, timeline event, and validation session inside it. Only project Owners can delete a project. There is no in-product undo.

If you’re not sure, change the project’s visibility or remove it from a shared team instead.

Plan availability

Every plan can create projects, but the number you can keep at once depends on your tier:

Plan	Project limit
Free	1
Lite	3
Plus	10
Pro	Unlimited
Small Team	Unlimited
Studio	Unlimited
Production	Unlimited
Enterprise	Unlimited

Sharing a project with a team requires the Small Team plan or higher. Personal projects are available on every plan.

Limits & edge cases

Slug already taken (409). PlotLens suggests alternatives; the create flow retries up to 10 times and falls back to appending a short unique fragment.
Project at limit. If you’re at your plan’s project cap, creation is blocked. Delete a project you don’t need or upgrade your plan.
Wrong team active. Opening a project on a team you’re not currently switched into auto-switches your active team and shows a confirmation toast.
Not a team member (403). You can’t open or edit projects on teams you don’t belong to.
Insufficient access (403). Editing settings requires Owner, Admin, or Editor; deleting requires Owner.
Rate limited (429). If you create projects in rapid succession, wait for the Retry-After window and try again.
Unknown genres on load. If a project was tagged with a genre that’s no longer in the predefined list, the field silently drops it on load.

Common pitfalls

Treating one project as your whole library. One project per story world. Don’t dump unrelated novels into a single project — entities and canon rules from one will collide with the other.
Forgetting which team you’re in. The projects list is scoped to your active team. If a project seems to have vanished, check the team switcher first.
Editing the slug after sharing it. Changing a slug breaks any existing links. Pick a slug you can live with before you share it around.
Hitting the Free limit early. Free includes 1 project. If you’re juggling multiple stories, plan for Lite (3) or Plus (10).