Key concepts

Learn the five Portal concepts and how they fit together.

Supernova Portal uses a small set of words to describe how work is organized. Once these click, everything else (prototyping, collaboration, sharing) becomes easy to understand.

Workspace

A workspace is your team’s home in Portal. It’s where people are invited, all data is stored, and where access is managed at the highest level.

Example:
“My company” workspace with all PMs, Designers, and Engineers.


Project

A project is a space for a single initiative — such as a feature, redesign, or discovery effort. Projects keep related work together - Prototypes, Documents, and members working on it.

Example:
Project: “New onboarding” or “Checkout improvements (Q2)”


Prototype

A prototype is where you spend most of your time building and iterating on your idea/feature.

  • A prototype is always part of a specific project (it can’t live on its own).
  • One project can include multiple prototypes (for different features, flows, or ideas).
  • Each prototype contains many iterations (saved checkpoints of progress).
  • A prototype can also have related documents connected to it, so the “why” and decisions stay close to the work

Example:

  • Project: “New onboarding”
  • Prototype: “Onboarding flow — mobile”
  • Iterations: “Baseline flow”, “Variant A”, “Feedback applied”
  • Related document: “Onboarding goals + open questions”

Iteration

An iteration is a meaningful step saved in a prototype’s progress. Use iterations to capture milestones and make reviews easier.

Example:

  • Iteration 1: “Baseline flow”
  • Iteration 2: “Shorter step 2”
  • Iteration 3: “Feedback applied”

Document

A document is another file type inside a project — just like a prototype. It’s where you capture the context around the work: the goal, decisions, notes, requirements, feedback, and next steps.

  • A document is always part of a specific project.
  • One project can include multiple documents (briefs, specs, meeting notes, decision logs).
  • Documents and prototypes are meant to live together — you can keep knowledge close to the UI you’re building.
  • Prototypes and documents are interconnected via Agents, so you can move between them easily:
    1. Create or update a prototype from a document (when you start with a brief and want to prototype the UI)
    2. Generate or update a document from a prototype (when you built the UI and want to capture or share the decisions)


Example:
Project: “New onboarding”
Document: “Onboarding brief” → create Prototype: “Onboarding flow — mobile”
Prototype updates → generate Document: “Review summary + decisions”


How things are nested (how they fit together)

Think of Portal like boxes inside boxes:

Workspace → Projects → Prototypes + Documents → Iterations