Creating Your First Project

Creating Your First Project

This guide walks you through creating and configuring your first Lighthouse project from scratch.

Before You Begin

Make sure you have:

• Lighthouse installed and enabled
• A folder structure in mind for your project (or a blank folder — Groups are easy to add later)

Step 1: Organize Your Folders (Optional)

Before creating the project in Lighthouse, you can set up a starting folder structure:

My Novel/
├── Chapters/
└── Drafts/

This isn’t required — Lighthouse auto-creates an Extras group the first time you view the project, and you can add more groups from the Library at any point.

Step 2: Create the Project

1. Open Command Palette (Cmd/Ctrl+P)
2. Run Lighthouse: Create new project
3. Enter project details:
   • Project name: “My Novel”
   • Root folder: select “My Novel”
4. Click Create project

Step 3: Enter the Writing Workspace

Click the compass icon in the ribbon, or run Lighthouse: Open writing workspace. The Library opens on the left with your groups, and an Extras group is created automatically at the bottom for research and notes.

Step 4: Add Groups

Click the + in the Library header to add a top-level group (e.g. “Chapters”), name it, and pick an icon. Repeat for any other groups you want — “Drafts”, “Notes”, and so on. Anything you don’t want counted toward your word goal goes in Extras instead.

Step 5: Set a Goal (Optional)

1. Open the project’s ”⋯” menu in the Library header and choose Edit project…
2. Enter a Word count goal (e.g. 80000)
3. Optionally set a Deadline and Daily writing goal
4. Save

Step 6: Check the Inspector

Open the Inspector’s Overview tab to see your goal ring and stats, or the Stats tab for live word counts as you write.

Step 7: Start Writing

Open a note inside your “Chapters” group and start writing. Watch the word counts update in real-time in the status bar and the Inspector.

Next Steps

• Learn about Organizing Your Work
• Explore Tracking Progress
• Read about Groups & Extras