# the amount of project() statements
**URL:** https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-amount-of-project-statements/406
**Category:** Usage
**Created:** [December 17, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-amount-of-project-statements/406 "2019-12-17T22:31:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lieven](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/Lieven)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-amount-of-project-statements/406/1 "2019-12-17T22:31:47Z")
Consider the following situation :
A code base consisting out of:
- many libraries
- many applications/executables
Assume organized like this
>
rootdir
|—executables
|—libraries
Where the executables contains a sub directory per application, and the libraries contains per directory a library (could be further divided in more hierarchical directories)
Every directory has a CMakeLists.txt, add\_subdirectory() it child directories, until you reach a library directory (so no more hierarchical directories) which then does an add\_library()
similar for the executables, bu tin the end they do an add\_executable()
What would be the adviced amount of project() 's ?
Could it be a project per directory and per executable, of just 1 project at the top level, and consider the entire code base as the project out of which many executables and/or libraries could be built ?
kind regards
---
### Author:  [@kyle.edwards](https://discourse.cmake.org/u/kyle.edwards)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://discourse.cmake.org/t/the-amount-of-project-statements/406/2 "2019-12-18T15:35:49Z")
> [@Lieven](#):
>
> of just 1 project at the top level, and consider the entire code base as the project out of which many executables and/or libraries could be built ?
Typically, yes. You would normally only use multiple `project()`s if your top-level project was using `add_subdirectory()` to add a project made by a third party (or one made by you but that lives in its own code base.)
Basically, if the subdirectories are grouped into a single coherent codebase then you would only have a single top-level project.