# Start a design

Open Design mode, choose a folder for your design, and ask an agent for your first screen. Plus what Design saves on your computer.

Canonical page: https://themachine.myapps.ai/docs/desktop/design/get-started

## 1. Open Design

Click the **Machine** icon at the top left of the window and choose
**Design**. Machine Desktop remembers the mode you were in, and the next time
you come back to Design it opens your last design straight away.

The first time, you see the welcome screen:

![The Design welcome screen with a Choose a folder button and a list of recent designs](/images/docs/desktop/design-welcome.webp)

## 2. Choose a folder

Click **Choose a folder** and pick (or make) a folder for the design, such
as `Documents\Tidepool`. If the folder has no design yet, Design starts one
for you with a single 1440 × 900 artboard called **Desktop**.

Your last eight designs are listed under **Recent designs**. Click one to
open it again.

## 3. Ask for something

Type what you want into the box at the bottom, *"Ask the agent to design or
change something…"*, and press **Enter**:

![The prompt box with a request typed in, the Auto switch, the thinking level and the model](/images/docs/desktop/design-prompt-bar.webp)

The agent builds on the canvas while you watch, then tells you what it
changed. You can keep it, undo it, or ask for more. See
[Work with an agent](/docs/desktop/design/design-with-an-agent).

Or skip the agent and draw it yourself: press **F** and drag on the empty
canvas for a new artboard, then add text (**T**), boxes (**R**) and images.
See [The canvas](/docs/desktop/design/canvas).

![The Tidepool design after the agent added a Sign in and a Settings screen next to the other iOS boards](/images/docs/desktop/design-result.webp)

## What Design saves

A design is plain files inside a `design` folder in the folder you chose:

| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
| `design/design.json` | The pages, and where each artboard sits on the canvas and how big it is. |
| `design/artboards/` | One file per artboard: its layers, their text and their CSS styles. |
| `design/tokens.css` | Your theme: colours, sizes and fonts every artboard can use. Made when you add your first token. |
| `design/assets/` | Pictures you add. |
| `design/README.md` | A short guide to the format, for any agent or person who opens the folder. |
| `design/.history/` | Earlier versions of the design, packed small. See [Version history](/docs/desktop/design/version-history). Leave this folder alone. |

Everything saves as you go. The top bar says **Saved**, **Saving…** or, if
something went wrong, **Not saved** (point at it to see why).

Because a design is just files, anything can work on it. If another agent or
an editor changes a file, the canvas updates by itself. Undo works on those
changes too.

Design also keeps earlier versions as you work: after each agent turn, every
few minutes while you edit, and whenever you save one with a name. Open them
with the clock in the top bar. See [Version history](/docs/desktop/design/version-history).

> **Machine Code gets a copy**
> While a design is open, Design keeps a copy of it in
> `.machine/canvas/design/` so Machine Code's Canvas and its agents can see
> it. You don't need to touch that folder. See [Design and Machine Code](/docs/desktop/design/machine-code).

## Switch designs

At the bottom of the left panel, click the design's name for:

- **Show in folder**: open the folder in File Explorer or Finder.
- **Copy folder path**
- **Open another design…**: back to the welcome screen with your recent designs.

The **×** at the top right of the window (**Close design**) also takes you
back to the welcome screen.

## Limits

| | Up to |
|---|---|
| Pages | 200 |
| Artboards | 500 |
| Layers in one artboard | 5,000 |
| Artboard size | 20,000 px a side |
| One artboard's file | 2 MB |
| A picture | 15 MB |