Projects and Materials
Understand where Knotest stores evaluation truth and how inputs become owned Materials.
Project
A Project is a visible folder for one body of evaluation work. It contains the Materials, decisions, Claims, and Evidence that another person needs to inspect the record.
Knotest can have one Project open for writing at a time. Files under .knotest/
are disposable indexes, locks, scratch space, and caches; they are not Project
truth.
Material
A Material is a content-identified Dataset, Model, or other imported input owned by the Project. Import means copying an external source into that ownership boundary. It does not mean uploading it to a server or retaining a link to the original path.
External source -- Import --> Project-owned MaterialThis distinction matters when the original source moves or changes. A retained Evaluation continues to identify the imported Material it actually used.
Practical consequences
- Back up the visible Project folder, not only application settings.
- Close the Project before editing owner files outside Knotest.
- Do not treat
.knotest/as durable data. - Do not replace imported bytes in place; import changed content as a new Material or revision through Knotest.
- Unknown files may coexist in the Project, but Knotest ignores them rather than adopting them as Project truth.
See Project Folder Reference for the stable on-disk boundary.