File statuses

Last updated: October 29, 2026

A file status says where a file is in your pipeline: a draft, in production, waiting for review, approved, delivered, or set aside. Every file in the workspace can carry one, so the whole team reads the same state from the library, a session board and the viewer, and can filter by it.

How it works

Each workspace has its own list of statuses, and each status belongs to one of six phases. A file holds one status at a time, or none. The status shows as a chip on the file's tile and in the viewer's sidebar, drawn with its phase's icon, and every change is kept in the file's activity.

A workspace starts with eight statuses, which its admins can rename, describe, recolor, reorder and delete, and add to. Layer sets four of them for you as work is made and exported; anyone who can edit files sets the rest by hand.

Phases

The phases are fixed and run in pipeline order. They group the statuses on the settings page, in the status picker and in the filters, so a status you add lands next to the ones it belongs with. Every status shows its phase's icon, in the phase's color unless an admin has given the status a color of its own; the icon stays the same either way.

Phase	Color	What it holds	Starting statuses
Planning	Grey	Ideas and early takes, not in production yet	Draft: an early take or an idea
In production	Amber	Work being made	Work In Progress: being worked on Intermediate: made on the way to a result, not the result itself
Review	Green	Work ready for someone to look at	In Review: ready for someone to review
Approved	Blue	Work signed off and final	Approved: signed off and final
Delivered	Violet	Work handed to the game or the team that ships it	Published: delivered to the game or the team that ships it
Inactive	Light grey	Work outside the pipeline. Exports never move a file out of it.	On Hold: paused for now Omitted: cut, and not going ahead

Statuses Layer sets for you

Four statuses are marked Automatic on the settings page: Layer's rules set them as work is made and exported. A rule finds its status however your workspace has renamed or reordered it. Deleting the status turns its rule off.

Status	Set on	Leaves alone
Draft	Files from a run with Draft turned on, the quick, low-cost preview some models offer	Files that already have a status
Intermediate	Files the agent or a workflow made on the way to its result, such as the frame a video was then made from	Files that already have a status
In Review	The results of a turn of the agent (the files it made that it did not then use as an input), and a workflow run's outputs	Files whose status someone set by hand
Published	Files exported with Mark as Published ticked in Download as..., which it is by default	Files On Hold, Omitted or in any other inactive status

See Download and export your assets for the export option.

Who can do what

Setting a file's status

Anyone whose role lets them edit the workspace's files can set or clear a status, one file or many at a time. Everyone in the workspace sees statuses and can filter by them.

Managing the list

Admins manage the workspace's statuses on the File Statuses settings page, as does any custom role with the Manage file statuses permission. See Customize your workspace's file statuses and Create a custom role.

Assistants connected through MCP

An AI assistant connected to Layer can list your workspace's statuses and set them on files for you, for example "set the files in this session to In Review". See Connect an AI assistant to Layer.

What it means for you

A status belongs to the file, not to a session or a project: set it on a board and the library shows it too.
A file's activity in the viewer lists every change of status, who made it and when. A change the agent made names the agent and the person it worked for; a change through an assistant names the app it came through.
Deleting a status does not change any file. Files that hold it keep it until someone sets another status; it can no longer be chosen.
Statuses are workspace-wide. A child workspace has its own list.