There are plenty of ways to fold code in Emacs and I\'ve settled in on using the outline minor mode... it works great!
However, I really want my folding to be persisted
I realize this is an old post but FWIW I created a minor mode that complements hs-minor-mode, outline-mode etc. I also "really want my folding to be persisted when I close and re-open files". :)
The package is in MELPA as of today and called persistent-overlays.
It is also available directly on github: https://github.com/mneilly/Emacs-Persistent-Overlays