Managing Projects

Projects are the core unit of work in ERDHub. Each project contains a DSL document, a visual diagram, and its own settings.

Creating a Project

• Click the New Project button, or press Cmd+N (Mac) / Ctrl+N (Windows/Linux).
• If you belong to a workspace, you can choose whether to create a personal project or a workspace project.
• New projects open with a blank DSL editor, ready for you to start defining tables.

TIP

Not sure where to start? Type a simple table definition in the editor and watch the diagram appear in real time. See the DSL Reference for syntax details.

Saving

• Press Cmd+S (Mac) / Ctrl+S (Windows/Linux), or click the Save button.
• The first time you save, you will be prompted to give the project a name.
• During real-time collaboration sessions, auto-save is enabled automatically.
• Each save creates a version history entry. Auto-saves are throttled to one entry every 5 minutes to keep history manageable.

TIP

You can always save manually even when auto-save is active. Manual saves are never throttled.

Opening Projects

• Click My Projects in the sidebar, or press Cmd+O (Mac) / Ctrl+O (Windows/Linux).
• The project list is filtered based on your active context -- personal or a specific workspace.
• Use the workspace switcher in the header to change context and see projects from a different workspace.

Renaming

• Click directly on the project name in the header to edit it inline.
• Press Enter to confirm or Escape to cancel.
• Renaming requires edit permission: you must be the project owner, an editor, or a workspace member with sufficient access.

Deleting

• Open the project, then go to Project Settings and click Delete.
• Only the project owner (or a workspace owner/admin) can delete a project.

WARNING

Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. Make sure to export your DSL or SQL before deleting if you want to keep a copy.

Personal vs Workspace Projects

ERDHub supports two kinds of project ownership:

	Personal Projects	Workspace Projects
Owned by	You	The workspace
Default access	Only you	All workspace members
Sharing	Via share links or collaborator invites	Managed at the workspace level
Visibility	Listed under your personal context	Listed under the workspace context

• Personal projects are private by default. You control access by inviting individual collaborators or generating a share link.
• Workspace projects belong to the workspace. All members of the workspace automatically have access based on their workspace role. Share links and collaborator invites are not used for workspace projects.

TIP

If you want a project to be accessible to your whole team, create it as a workspace project. If it is a personal experiment or draft, keep it as a personal project.

Dialect Selection

Each project is associated with a SQL dialect that determines how your schema is interpreted and exported.

• The default dialect is PostgreSQL.
• Change the dialect at any time from the editor toolbar.
• The dialect affects:
  • SQL export output syntax
  • Type mappings (e.g., INT vs INTEGER, VARCHAR vs NVARCHAR)
  • Generated DDL formatting and keywords

Supported dialects:

• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• SQL Server
• SQLite

WARNING

Switching dialects may affect type mappings and certain dialect-specific features. Review your generated SQL after changing dialects to ensure it matches your expectations.