Key terms in Layer
Last updated: October 10, 2026
The words Layer uses for the things you work with, each in a sentence or two, with a link to the article that covers it. Read this once before the how-tos; they assume these terms.
How it works
Everything sits inside a workspace. Projects scope it to one game or campaign. Work happens in sessions, each with a board, where tools, apps, workflows and the agent produce assets. Every asset also lands in the Asset Library, and every run is paid for in Creative Units from the workspace's balance. Reference sets run through all of it, keeping what you make on-model.
Where work lives
Workspace
Your team's shared space in Layer: its members, its assets, its reference sets and workflows, and one balance of Creative Units. You can belong to several and switch between them from the workspace menu. See Your Layer workspace.
Project
A way to group the assets, sessions, reference sets and workflows that belong to one game, season or feature. While a project is active, the app shows only its work. Adding an asset to a project links it rather than moving it, so one asset can sit in several projects. See Organize work into projects.
Session
A working space for one piece of work, such as a character, an icon set or a trailer. It holds a board, plus the tools and the agent in the panel beside it, and keeps everything you made there so you can come back to it. See Find and reopen a session.
Board
The open canvas inside a session. Every file you bring in or generate there appears on it, and you can arrange, group and annotate them to compare takes or lay out a storyboard. See Plan a storyboard on the session board.
Asset (file)
A single image, video, 3D model, sound or other file, uploaded or generated. Layer keeps the prompt, model and settings that made it, so you can see how it was made and run it again. The app says asset in lists and pickers and file in some places; they are the same thing.
Asset Library
Every asset in the workspace in one place, searchable and filterable, whichever session made it. See Find your work in the library.
Label
A tag you add to assets that belong together, such as one character's poses or this week's approved picks, so you can filter the library down to them. Labels sort work inside a project; they do not replace projects. See Label your assets and filter by label.
Making things
Model (base model)
The AI model that does the work in a run. Each tool starts on a default model, and you can switch to any model that supports the job; models differ in look, speed and cost. Admins can choose which models the team may use. See Choose a model.
Tool
One job you can run from a session's side panel, such as Create image, Upscale image or Remove image background. A tool gives you the inputs and settings for that job and runs it on the model you pick. See Create images.
Generation (run)
One execution of a tool, an app or a workflow: your inputs and settings go in, one or more outputs come out. A batch produces several outputs from one generation, and each output is charged.
Workflow
A saved, multi-step pipeline built from connected steps, for example generate, then remove the background, then upscale. You fill in its inputs and it runs every step, the same way each time, so a team can repeat a process without rebuilding it. See Find and run a workflow.
App
A published workflow offered as a ready-made form: you fill in a few inputs and get the result, without seeing the steps behind it. Apps appear under Apps on Home and in a session's side panel.
Agent
The assistant in a session's chat. Describe what you need and it picks the tools and models, asks for anything missing, works on the files you attach or select on the board, and can ask you to approve the cost before it generates. See Write a brief for the agent.
Keeping work consistent
Reference set
A reusable, shared store of the things your pipeline relies on: a character, a style, an object, a scene, an animation or a brand (logos, fonts and a color palette). Attach a reference set to a tool's Reference set slot, use it in a workflow, or mention it to the agent, and every run that uses it stays on-model and repeatable, whoever on the team makes it. You can also train a model on a set for a closer fit; training is one way to use a reference set, not what makes one. See Reference sets: the source of truth for your art pipeline and Create a reference set.
Paying and permissions
Creative Units (CUs)
What you spend in Layer. Each run costs CUs depending on the model and the size and number of outputs, the estimate shows on the run button before you start, and the cost comes out of the workspace's shared balance. See Creative Units.
Role
What a member is allowed to do in the workspace, such as managing settings or billing. Every member has one. Layer has built-in roles such as Admin and Member, and on the Enterprise plan admins can create their own in Groups & Roles. See Invite teammates and set their roles.
Group
A set of members managed together. A group can give its members a role and a usage limit on Creative Units, and groups from your identity provider arrive on their own. Groups are part of the Enterprise plan. See Set a usage limit for a group.
What it means for you
- Pick the way of working that fits the task: a tool for a precise one-off, an app or a workflow for a repeatable process, or the agent for open-ended and multi-step jobs. All of them put their results on the same board and in the same library.
- Put what must stay consistent (a hero character, a house style, a brand kit) into a reference set early, before a production push, so every artist and every run starts from the same source.
- Use projects for the boundary (a game, a season) and labels for sorting inside it.