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.

What's in it:

{
  "workspaceRoot": "/Users/me/notes",
  "tree": {
    "kind": "split",
    "id": { "raw": "..." },
    "orientation": "horizontal",
    "ratio": 0.5,
    "first": {
      "kind": "leaf",
      "pane": {
        "id": { "raw": "..." },
        "tabs": [
          { "id": ..., "source": "file:///...", "title": "spec.md", "state": "<base64>" }
        ],
        "activeTabID": ...
      }
    },
    "second": { ... }
  }
}

Per-panel state is opaque to the layout layer — it's whatever the provider chose to encode.

Per-panel state

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

Recent files

UserDefaults key soffit.recentFiles.v1

A flat array of standardised file URLs, MRU order, capped at 20. Auto-prunes deleted files when you expand the Recent sidebar section.

To clear: sidebar → Recent → expand → Clear at the bottom. To wipe via shell: defaults delete com.soffit.app soffit.recentFiles.v1.

Resource bundle

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

File	Purpose
mermaid-shim.html	The HTML page that renders .mmd files
mermaid.min.js	Vendored mermaid renderer (run scripts/vendor-mermaid.sh to fetch — not committed)

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
Recent files list	Per-tab scroll position
Workspace root	Hover/drag overlay state

Backup and migrate

To move a workspace to another Mac:

1. Copy your folder.
2. Copy ~/Library/Application Support/Soffit/layout.json.
3. Open Soffit on the new Mac, point it at the copied folder. Layout restores.

To reset to a clean slate without uninstalling:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Soffit/layout.json
defaults delete com.soffit.app soffit.recentFiles.v1

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