Storage

What gets stored where.

DraftPilot is local-first. Your paper, code, PDF, comments, and logs stay on the machine running DraftPilot unless you explicitly move or share them.

Inside the paper folder

.paper-cockpit.metadata.jsonLinked codebases, project deadline, selected main TeX file, comments, highlights, TODOs, annotation colors, and PDF highlight mode.

build/Local LaTeX output such as PDFs, aux files, SyncTeX files, and generated build artifacts.

.paper-cockpit-trash/Files moved to project trash from the UI.

What to put in Git

For GitHub-backed paper workflows, commit the manuscript source, bibliography, figures, and any DraftPilot metadata you want to carry across machines. Keep machine-specific build output out of Git unless you intentionally want to archive a PDF or compiled artifact.

Usually commit.tex, .bib, figures, notes, and selected DraftPilot metadata for comments, TODOs, deadlines, and linked-codebase intent.

Usually ignorebuild/, auxiliary LaTeX files, temporary exports, local logs, and machine-specific runtime files.

Review before committingComments and TODOs can be useful shared context, but they may include private review notes. Commit them only when that is intentional.

Inside DraftPilot state

~/.draftpilot/config/telemetry.jsonAnonymous install ID and local telemetry preference. No paper content or paths are required for telemetry.

~/.draftpilot/logs/Local server and runtime logs used for debugging on your machine.

~/.draftpilot/runtime/Runtime metadata such as server PID files and packaged runtime materialization.

Desktop app stateRecent workspaces are stored in the operating system app data folder for the DraftPilot desktop launcher.

Support bundles

The support bundle button exports safe diagnostics by default: versions, platform, tool availability, counts, and build status. It excludes paper text, code, PDF content, comments, highlighted text, compile logs, and file paths unless you explicitly enable path inclusion.