How CodexStudio works

Every story begins on your writing desk — the dashboard where all your books live.

1. 1Create a free account with your email, and add a pen name if you'd like a public-facing identity.
2. 2Click New project and give your book a title, genre and a one-line synopsis.
3. 3Already have a draft? Use Import to drop in a .docx, .txt or .pdf — it's split into chapters and its details are extracted for you.

The Blueprint is your bird's-eye view: a logline at the top, acts across the board, and chapter cards you can shape before you draft.

codexstudio · story blueprint

1. 1Write a logline — your story's north star — then flesh out each act's pitch.
2. 2Add chapter cards under any act, set a status (Planned / Drafting / Done) and slide the tension marker.
3. 3Drag chapters between acts to reshape your structure, or switch to the outline view.
4. 4Stuck? Hit AI: Expand to turn a logline into acts, or an act into chapters.

Before you write a scene, sketch it out. The Beat / Scene Planner lets you list a chapter's beats as a simple, tickable checklist — with your logline, act and summary right there for context.

codexstudio · beat planner

1. 1Open Beats from the manuscript toolbar on any chapter.
2. 2Add beats in the order they'll happen, and tick each one off as you draft it.
3. 3Reorder or remove beats as the scene takes shape.
4. 4Short on ideas? Let 'AI: Suggest beats' draft a plan from your logline and chapter summary.

The Manuscript view is a focused, Word-class editor. As you write, CodexStudio recognises the details that matter.

codexstudio · manuscript

1. 1Draft in the centre canvas — everything autosaves as you type.
2. 2Chapters number themselves automatically (Chapter 1, 2, 3…) and renumber if you add, reorder or delete one — any custom titles like 'Prologue' are kept and skipped in the count.
3. 3Flip on Highlight details to see characters, weapons, places and objects colour-coded in your prose.
4. 4Click any highlight to edit that detail — the update reflects across every chapter instantly.
5. 5Use the toolbar for headings, styles, lists and links, plus native spellcheck.

The Codex is your story's living memory — a searchable board of every vital detail.

codexstudio · storyboard codex

1. 1Browse detail cards grouped by type: characters, weapons, locations, objects, factions and more.
2. 2Search or filter by type to find anything in seconds.
3. 3Toggle Included to mark which details have made it into your draft.
4. 4Add your own custom detail types with their own colours — and mark a type as a Kit (like a Med Kit or grab-bag) to give it a contents list.

Front and back matter you reuse in every book — Prologue, Dedication, About the Author, Acknowledgements, Epilogue — a click away, and never counted in your chapter numbering.

1. 1Open the “+” menu in the Chapters list and pick a section — it drops in correctly named and placed at the front or back of your book.
2. 2Write your Author Bio once and hit ‘Save as my bio’ — the About the Author section auto-fills with it in every book.
3. 3‘Manage sections’ lets you add, rename or remove sections and set front/back placement — per book, or ‘Save as my default’ for future books.
4. 4Sections are ordinary chapters once added, so you can move them anytime with the up/down arrows or by dragging on the Blueprint.

Let the AI read a chapter and surface the details worth tracking — with you in control of how much it captures.

1. 1Open AI Scan from the studio toolbar to sweep the current chapter.
2. 2Choose a sensitivity: Key details only, Balanced, or Everything.
3. 3Prefer to review first? Switch to 'Review first' and tick exactly which details enter your Codex.
4. 4Run Proofread anytime for a spelling and grammar pass.

For action, survival, fantasy and historical fiction, the loadout engine tracks every item, arrow, magazine and ration your characters carry.

codexstudio · loadouts

1. 1Add owners (characters, vehicles or buildings) and give them gear, ammo, food and water.
2. 2Ammo is any consumable type — 5.56mm rounds, shotgun shells, arrows or musket balls — and each weapon can carry its own calibre and magazine size (create a weapon in the Codex once and it's remembered everywhere).
3. 3Mark a store like an armoury or quiver as a stock source so kit drawn from it is deducted automatically.
4. 4Build a Kit in your Codex (say a Med Kit with 6 bandages and 2 tourniquets) — when a character picks it up, its contents auto-fill their loadout as a tick-off checklist.
5. 5Type a plain-English note — 'fired 30 rounds', 'loosed a dozen arrows', 'down to two mags' (an absolute ammo-check) or 'restocked the med kit' — and let it update the counts and kit checklists.
6. 6When a character is killed, a Gear Sync scan suggests marking them KIA (you confirm) — dead characters are frozen from gaining gear, but you can loot their kit onto the living and Redistribute ammo across the squad.
7. 7Use Sync gear on a chapter to scan the scene, review each change, and watch for low-stock and continuity warnings.

CodexStudio keeps your work safe whether you write on one screen or several — and can pop out onto a second monitor.

1. 1Your manuscript is protected by auto-refresh, a save-guard that blocks stale overwrites, and a Version History you can restore from.
2. 2Tick ‘Keep me signed in’ at login to stay signed in; untick it on a shared device to sign out when the browser closes.
3. 3On the Codex, Loadouts and Blueprint, hit ‘Pop out’ to open that panel in its own resizable window — ideal for a second monitor.
4. 4Edits sync live across every open window in about a second, and each pop-out remembers its size.
5. 5Install CodexStudio as an app from your browser to add it to your home screen or desktop.

Writing a choose-your-own-adventure? Switch a project to Branching mode and build interactive paths.

1. 1Toggle Linear ↔ Branching from the Blueprint header (your data is kept either way).
2. 2Give any section choices, each linking to an existing or brand-new section.
3. 3Open the visual Map to see your whole story as a node-and-arrow graph, with Start, endings and orphans flagged.

Your work is always yours — and always backed up.

1. 1Everything autosaves — you'll see 'All changes saved' in the header, and past versions are kept so you can roll back.
2. 2Export a clean manuscript to PDF or Word (.docx), or take your codex with you as data.
3. 3Upload cover art to each project to make your desk feel like a real bookshelf.