Forking copies someone else's published folder into your workspace, where you can edit, extend and republish it without asking anyone. The copy is a plain set of files in your account. It has no ongoing relationship with the original, and there is no way to pull later changes from it.

## Fork a folder

Open a published folder at its `/s/<token>` page and press **Fork to My Files**. You must be signed in, because the copy has to land in a workspace. Forking applies to whole published folders only; a [[Share Links|share link]] has no fork button.

Where the copy lands:

- **At the top level of the workspace you are currently in.** In a team workspace the fork belongs to the organization. In your personal workspace it belongs to you. See [[Personal and Team]].
- **Under the original name plus `(forked)`.** Forking `handbook` gives you `handbook (forked)`. Fork the same folder twice and the second copy is numbered, `handbook (forked) 2`, because two root folders cannot share a name.

Rename it straight afterwards if you like. Nothing about the fork depends on the name.

## What the copy carries

| Carried over | Not carried over |
|---|---|
| Every text file's content, exactly as published | The original's version history and checkpoints |
| The full folder structure, at any depth | Comments, votes, view count and fork count |
| File names, types and ordering in the tree | The original's share link or public URL |
| Canvas boards, repointed at your copies of the files | Any link back to the original folder |

Three of those need more detail.

**Version history does not travel.** Your copy's first version is the moment you forked it, and [[How Versioning Works|versioning]] records everything from there. You cannot roll a forked file back to a state that existed only in the author's workspace.

> [!WARNING]
> **Media is the exception.** Monofile stores images, video, audio and PDFs outside the file entry. A fork copies the entry but not the stored file behind it, so media in a fork arrives empty. If you need the file itself, open it on the original folder's page and save it from there.

**Canvas boards are rewritten.** A `.canvas` board references other files and does not contain them, so a plain copy would point at files in someone else's workspace. The fork rewrites each board's references to the copies in your tree, and a forked board opens with its nodes intact.

## What forking does to the original

The original folder is untouched, and the author keeps the only editable copy. Two counters move:

- The share's **fork count** goes up, which is visible on the community card and feeds its trending score, see [[Community]].
- A **fork** entry appears in the activity feed, naming you and the folder.

The author cannot revoke a fork. Unpublishing the original leaves every existing fork in place.

## Publishing a fork

A fork is yours, so you can publish it with [[Public Folders]] like any other root folder. It becomes a separate share with its own URL, its own votes and its own comment thread. Nothing links the two shares, so if your work builds on someone else's, credit them in the folder's `README.md`; there is no other place for it.

## From an agent or the CLI

`fork_folder` takes the share id, which is the `id` field from `list_community_folders`, not the `/s/` token from the URL. It needs the `community:write` scope.

```http
POST /api/tools/fork_folder
{"shareId":"share-id-123"}
```

```bash tab="CLI"
monofile community list --sort trending --limit 5   # prints an id per folder
monofile community fork <shareId>
```
```bash tab="curl"
curl -X POST https://www.monofile.ai/api/tools/fork_folder \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MONOFILE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"shareId":"share-id-123"}'
```

The response tells you where the copy landed and how big it is:

```json nocopy
{
  "folderId": "clx456",
  "folderName": "handbook (forked)",
  "fileCount": 12
}
```

To read a published folder without owning a copy, skip the fork. `public_bash` runs read-only `ls`, `tree`, `cat`, `grep` and `find` over any published folder, and the `/s/<token>` page offers **Download ZIP** to anyone, signed in or not.

## Next steps

:::cards
- [[Public Folders]] — Publish a folder to the community, and what becomes visible.
- [[Community]] — The feed, votes, comments and trending.
- [[How Versioning Works]] — Automatic version capture on every write, and how long versions last.
- [[Sharing and Community]] — Share links, folder shares, votes, comments, follows and the feed.
:::