Project Snapshot

A project snapshot is a portable export of your Descope project configuration. Use snapshots to back up settings, promote changes across environments (for example, development to staging to production), or track configuration in source control. The quick reference below maps each path to its purpose; later sections go deeper on the more complex areas.

Snapshot Structure

When you export a project, Descope writes the configuration to a folder of JSON files and subdirectories. Each top-level file or folder maps to a configuration area in your project. The layout below shows what a typical export contains.

Quick Reference

Assets

The assets/ directory holds binary and text files referenced elsewhere in the snapshot, like flow screen images, OAuth provider logos, email templates, and similar content. assets.json is the manifest: it maps each asset file to the snapshot paths and fields that reference it.

Asset files use content-based names with a type prefix. The hash in each filename is derived from the file contents, so identical assets share the same name across exports.

Other snapshot files reference assets with an asset: prefix followed by the filename—for example, "logo": "asset:img-xxxxx.svg" in an OAuth provider configuration.

When exporting with the Descope CLI, pass --no-assets to skip extracting asset files into the snapshot directory.

Flows

The flows/ directory holds every flow in the project. flows.json is the index: it lists each flow by flow ID, and each ID has a matching subdirectory under flows/.

{
  "flows": [
    "sign-in",
    "sign-up-or-in",
    "inbound-apps-user-consent"
  ]
}

Each flow folder contains the flow logic, metadata, and one JSON file per screen.

To work with a single flow outside a full project snapshot—for example, to import one flow into another project—use descope flow export or descope flow convert to convert between snapshot format (a flow folder) and a single JSON file.

Styles

The styles/ directory holds every style in the project, including custom styles. styles.json is the index: it lists each style by style ID, and each ID has a matching JSON file under styles/.

{
  "componentsVersion": "3.14.10",
  "styles": [
    "custom-style-1-dark",
    "custom-style-1-light",
    "dark",
    "light",
    "sso-suite-default-dark",
    "sso-suite-default-light"
  ]
}

Each style JSON file defines only the changes from Descope’s default light or dark styles. This means your style files specify overrides rather than full copies, making it easy to manage customizations on top of the built-in Descope appearance.

{
  "components": {
    "container": {
      "id": {
        "ROOT": {
          "--descope-container-background-color": "var(--descope-colors-primary-main)"
        }
      }
    }
  },
  "globals": {
    "colors": {
      "secondary": {
        "contrast": "#FFFFFF",
        "dark": "#355313",
        "highlight": "#9DDA58",
        "light": "#7BC32B",
        "main": "#588B1FFF"
      }
    }
  },
  "name": "Custom-Style-1",
  "type": "flows"
}

Widgets

The widgets/ directory holds every widget in the project. widgets.json is the index: it lists each widget by widget ID, and each ID has a matching subdirectory under widgets/.

{
  "widgets": [
    "access-key-management",
    "role-management",
    "user-management",
    "user-profile"
  ]
}

Each widget folder contains the flow logic, metadata, and one JSON file per screen.

The widgets/ directory also contains a flows/ subdirectory with all of the widget flows in your project. There is a flows.json file which lists all of the flows by their unique ID. For each flow ID, there is a corresponding folder under widgets/flows/ that contains a separate JSON file for every screen in that flow, as well as a contents.json file (with the flow logic and task graph) and a metadata.json file (with the flow's display name and configuration).

Project Metadata

Two JSON files at the root of the snapshot describe the project itself and the export: