A desk is an independently revision-controlled branch of a ship that uses the Clay filesystem. Each desk contains its own apps, mark definitions, files, and so forth.

Traditionally a ship has at least a base desk and a home desk. The base desk has all the system software from the distribution, and the home desk is a fork of base with all the items specific to the user of the ship. A desk is a series of numbered commits, the most recent of which represents the current state of the desk. A commit is composed of 1 an absolute time when it was created, 2 a list of zero or more parents, and 3 a map from paths to data.

Further Reading

• Using Your Ship: A user guide that includes instructions for using desks.