From Everything-is-a-File to Files-Are-All-You-Need: How Unix Philosophy Informs the Design of Agentic AI Systems
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866909993146515456 |
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| author | Piskala, Deepak Babu |
| author_facet | Piskala, Deepak Babu |
| contents | A core abstraction in early Unix systems was the principle that 'everything is a file', enabling heterogeneous devices and kernel resources to be manipulated via uniform read/write interfaces. This paper explores how an analogous unification is emerging in contemporary agentic AI. We trace the evolution from Unix to DevOps, Infrastructure-as-Code, and finally autonomous software agents, highlighting how file-like abstractions and code-based specifications collapse diverse resources into consistent, composable interfaces. The resulting perspective suggests that adopting file- and code-centric interaction models may enable agentic systems that are more maintainable, auditable, and operationally robust. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_11672 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | From Everything-is-a-File to Files-Are-All-You-Need: How Unix Philosophy Informs the Design of Agentic AI Systems Piskala, Deepak Babu Software Engineering Systems and Control I.2.11; D.2.9 A core abstraction in early Unix systems was the principle that 'everything is a file', enabling heterogeneous devices and kernel resources to be manipulated via uniform read/write interfaces. This paper explores how an analogous unification is emerging in contemporary agentic AI. We trace the evolution from Unix to DevOps, Infrastructure-as-Code, and finally autonomous software agents, highlighting how file-like abstractions and code-based specifications collapse diverse resources into consistent, composable interfaces. The resulting perspective suggests that adopting file- and code-centric interaction models may enable agentic systems that are more maintainable, auditable, and operationally robust. |
| title | From Everything-is-a-File to Files-Are-All-You-Need: How Unix Philosophy Informs the Design of Agentic AI Systems |
| topic | Software Engineering Systems and Control I.2.11; D.2.9 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11672 |