Saving & Publishing

Button	When it appears	What it does
Close	Always	Discards unsaved changes and restores the shader to its original state
Save As	Editing an existing shader	Saves a copy under a new name without modifying the original
Save	New shader	Opens the Details dialog to name and categorise the shader before saving
Update	Existing shader you own	Opens the Details dialog to confirm or change metadata and publish state

The Details dialog

Clicking Save, Update, or Save As opens the Details dialog:

Name — the shader’s display name (also used as the filename)
Type — Generator, Effect, Feedback Effect, or 3D Displacement
Category — the visual style sub-category (Fractal, Blur, Glitch, etc.)
Publish to community — toggle to make the shader publicly visible on arkestra.app

Confirm with the primary button to save to disk and load the final shader into your track.

Save vs Update

Save (new shaders) — writes the shader to your local effects library and places it in the current chain. The shader is new, so a name is required.
Update (existing shaders) — overwrites the shader on disk. If it was already published to the community, the updated code and metadata are pushed to the server automatically.

Save As Copy

Save As saves an independent copy with a new name. The original shader is unchanged. The copy is placed in the current chain in place of the original.

If the original was published, the Publish toggle in the Save As dialog defaults to on — you can untick it to save a private local copy instead.

Publishing to the community

Toggle Publish to community on in the Details dialog to make your shader visible to all Arkestra users on arkestra.app and in the Add Content browser.

Published shaders appear in the community browser under the category you selected. Other users can add them to their own tracks; you retain authorship.

To unpublish a shader, open it in Studio, click Update, and turn the toggle off.

Closing without saving

Clicking Close (or the ✕ in the header) discards all changes and restores the shader that was in the chain when you opened Studio. If you opened Studio to create a new shader, the new shader is removed from the chain.