title: Folder Structure
---
summary: Explains the structure of a project on the filesystem.
---
body:

When you start your first Lektor project it's important to understand how data
is structured on the file system.  A Lektor project is a folder on the file
system with a project file and a well defined structure.

The most basic layout looks like this:

```
yourproject.lektorproject
content/
models/
templates/
assets/
```

There are a few more folders that play a role and plugins can add even more.

## Project File

The project file holds the main configuration of the project and is used to
identify the project for the user interface.  The name does not matter but
it needs to have the `.lektorproject` extension.  For more information about
that see [Project File :ref](../file/).

## Folders

### `content/`

The content folder is named `content` and contains all the sources that are
built into the final project.  Each folder within corresponds to a record
and the data of it is stored in the file by the name `contents.lr` within
which is a Lektor content file.  All other files are considered attachments.

Here a basic example layout to get an idea how this can look like:

```
content/
  contents.lr
  projects/
    contents.lr
    project-a/
      contents.lr
      thumbnail.png
    project-b/
      contents.lr
      thumbnail.png
    project-c/
      contents.lr
      thumbnail.png
```

The content folder is explained in detail in [Content :ref](../../content/).

### `models/`

This is the bread and butter of what makes Lektor powerful.  The models define
exactly how the data from the content folder should be processed.  The `models`
folder contains a list of INI files that each correspond to a single model.

For more information about this refer to the [Data Modelling :ref](../../models/)
documentation.

### `templates/`

Each model corresponds to a template from the `templates` folder.  So if you have a
model named `page` the file named `page.html` from the templates folder will then
be used to render it.

### `assets/`

Whatever is stored in the `assets` folder is copied over verbatim to the final
result.  So if you put a folder named `css` in there with all your static CSS
files they will appear as such in the final output.

### `flowblocks/`

The `flowblocks` folder contains models for blocks that are used by the
[Flow System :ref](../../content/flow/).  Flow blocks split a part of a page into
smaller pieces so that can be individually designed.  They work similar to models
but are contained within a field of a model.

### `packages/`

For local plugin development the `packages/` folder can be used.  Any plugin
stored in there is automatically activated in the system.

### `configs/`

This folder (`configs/`) contains plugin specific config files.  All the
files in there are named `<plugin-id>.ini`.

### `databags/`

Lektor also supports [Data Bags :ref](../../content/databags/) which go into a
folder named `databags/`.  These are files with some general information
that can be accessed from templates.  For instance you could store menus and
navigations there, API keys and much more.  This is generally just information 
you want to access from different places and maybe not keep in templates directly.