Persistence

Persistence

Where Soffit writes things on disk, and what survives a relaunch.

Layout snapshot

~/Library/Application Support/Soffit/layout.json

The whole pane tree. Tabs, active IDs, split orientations and ratios, plus per-panel state blobs. Written debounced 300ms after any change. Pretty-printed JSON with sorted keys for diff-friendliness.

Per-panel state

Provider	Encodes
File (markdown)	MarkdownPanelState — current mode (preview / edit / split / math)
Folder	CanvasState — items, positions, sizes, sticky note text/colours, zoom, pan, mode
Sketch	SketchState — array of strokes (color, width, points)
Chat (legacy)	ChatState — message history
Terminal, Web, Mermaid	Nothing persisted

User configuration

Path	Used for
~/.soffit/snippets.json	Custom text expansion triggers
~/.soffit/themes/*.json	Custom Preview themes
~/.soffit/templates/daily.md	Daily note seed (workspace-relative; this lives in the workspace, not your home)

The home .soffit/ dir is created on first launch with empty defaults. Edit any file in any text editor; Soffit watches and reloads.

UserDefaults

Key	Purpose
soffit.recentFiles.v1	Last 20 opened files (MRU)
soffit.sidebarWidth	Resizable sidebar width
soffit.spellCheck	Spell-check toggle for markdown editor
soffit.themeName	Currently selected Preview theme

Resource bundle

Inside Soffit.app/Contents/Resources/Soffit_Soffit.bundle/:

File	Purpose
mermaid-shim.html + mermaid.min.js	Mermaid rendering
math-shim.html + katex.min.{css,js} + marked.min.js + fonts/*.woff2	Math rendering
AppIcon.icns	App icon

Vendor scripts (scripts/vendor-mermaid.sh, scripts/vendor-katex.sh) refresh these.

Workspace-side state

Inside your workspace folder:

Path	Created by
attachments/	First image paste (⌘V of an image inserts here)
daily/	First daily-note open (⌘⇧D)
.soffit/templates/daily.md	Optional, you create it; if present, daily-note creation seeds from it

These are normal files. Commit them to git, sync them via iCloud Drive, whatever you want.

What gets cleared on relaunch

Survives	Doesn't
Pane tree, tabs, splits, ratios	Terminal sessions (always fresh)
Markdown editor mode per panel	Markdown undo history
Canvas item positions, sticky text, zoom, pan	Folder grid sort scroll position
Sketch strokes	Per-tab scroll position
Recent files list	Outline / backlinks panel state
Workspace root	Hover / drag overlay state
Sidebar width, spell-check toggle, theme

Backup and migrate

To move a workspace to another Mac:

1. Copy your folder.
2. Copy ~/Library/Application Support/Soffit/layout.json.
3. Optionally copy ~/.soffit/ for snippets and themes.
4. Open Soffit on the new Mac, point it at the copied folder.

To reset to a clean slate without uninstalling:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Soffit/layout.json
defaults delete com.soffit.app

Then relaunch — Soffit will ask for a workspace folder again.

Workspace index

Lives in memory only. Built on workspace open, refreshed on FSEvents. Holds:

• File metadata: title, headings, tags, frontmatter, wiki-links, inline links, word count, modification date
• Lowercase content for full-text search

Never written to disk. Cost: roughly 1.5× the total markdown file size in RAM. For a 5,000-file knowledge base of average-sized notes, expect ~50–100 MB of memory.