> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cortex.foundation/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Cortex Design > Boards of frames and notes, hosted from a Chat thread or a Code session and edited in the Cortex Design desktop app. Cortex Design is where visual work lives. The unit of work is a **design canvas**: a board that holds frames, notes, images and pieces you reuse from your Design library. A canvas is created from, and stays linked to, one thread, either a Cortex Chat conversation or a Cortex Code session. Ask Cortex for a layout in that thread and it draws frames on the canvas beside it. Design has exactly two surfaces. In the web app, a **CANVASES** rail sits beside a Chat thread or a Code session and lists the canvases that thread produced. The working editor is the **Cortex Design** desktop app, a separate window with its own gallery, editor, library and settings. This page is the map of the whole area. ## Explore Design From an empty gallery to a saved version and an export, in a few minutes. What a canvas holds, its host thread, the rail, the gallery, renaming and deleting. Generate options, pick one, ask for a change on a frame, retry an option that failed. Every save is a version. View an older one, or restore it as a new version. Components, tokens and pages you reuse across canvases, shared by your whole account. A rendered PNG and the canvas document as JSON. SVG and PDF are planned. Handing a design brief to a Cortex Bot is planned. It is not available yet. The Plugins page in the Design window, and which connectors reach Design. What the window holds, its sidebar, and why there is nothing to install yet. General, Models, and Data and privacy, inside the Design window. Signed out, a canvas that is not available, the canvas quota, an option that failed. ## Where Design lives A **CANVASES** rail is drawn beside an open Chat thread or Code session. It lists only the canvases that belong to the thread you are looking at, with each row's title, host, time and artifact counts, and a status pill of **Idle**, **In flight**, **Ready** or **Failed**. The rail is a right-hand column on a wide window, and a collapsed strip under the pane on a narrow one, so the transcript keeps its width until you ask for the rail. From a row you can choose **Open in Design** when the app can be reached, or **Copy reference** to copy the canvas id and paste it into the Design window. There is no Design page in the browser, and no Design entry beside Chat, Code and Bot. That is the design of the product, not a gap: the rail creates and lists canvases, and the desktop app edits them. The **Cortex Design** window opens on **Designs**, your gallery of canvases. Its sidebar also carries **Library**, **Plugins** and **Bot jobs**, a **Settings** control, a **New design** button and a search field. Inside a canvas you get the editor: the board itself with a small toolbar, a thread rail where you ask for changes, a **Versions** rail, and **Export**. The window is Design only, with no Chat or Code switcher in it. ## How it fits with the other products | Product | How it meets Design | | -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Cortex Chat](/chat) | Ask for a design in a conversation. Cortex creates a canvas bound to that conversation and draws frames on it. | | [Cortex Code](/code) | The same, from a Code session. A mode that only answers or only plans cannot write a canvas, so use a mode that can act. See [Ask, Plan, Agent](/code/interactions). | | [Cortex Bot](/bot) | A bot cannot open or change a design canvas today. See [Bot jobs](/design/bot-jobs). | A canvas's host is Chat or Code, never both, and you can move that binding later. Deleting the thread a canvas came from does not delete the canvas: it only leaves the canvas with no thread. Two nearby things share a word with Design and are separate objects. A [Chat canvas](/chat/canvases) is a markdown document written beside a conversation, not a board of frames. The [Design library](/design/library) is a set of design building blocks, while the [Chat Library](/chat/library) is a file store. [Design canvases](/design/canvases) has a table that keeps them apart. ## What is not available yet Cortex Design is honest about its edges. Handing a design to a Bot is planned and does not work today. SVG and PDF export are planned; PNG and JSON ship. There is no comment surface and no publish or share surface: a canvas is private to your account, and someone else's canvas simply answers as not available. Numeric tweaking of a generated frame is also planned. An account can keep up to **200 design canvases**. That is the only cap on how many designs you can have. ## Related * [Design quickstart](/design/quickstart) - draw, save and export your first canvas. * [Design canvases](/design/canvases) - the board, its host thread, and the gallery. * [Generate and edit](/design/editor) - the editor, option by option. * [Design desktop app](/design/desktop) - get the window that does the editing. * [Ways to run Cortex](/getting-started/downloads) - every application in one place.