Interpretable Context Methodology: Folder Structure as Agentic Architecture

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Van Clief, Jake, McDermott, David
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Van Clief, Jake
McDermott, David
author_facet Van Clief, Jake
McDermott, David
contents Current approaches to AI agent orchestration typically involve building multi-agent frameworks that manage context passing, memory, error handling, and step coordination through code. These frameworks work well for complex, concurrent systems. But for sequential workflows where a human reviews output at each step, they introduce engineering overhead that the problem does not require. This paper presents Model Workspace Protocol (MWP), a method that replaces framework-level orchestration with filesystem structure. Numbered folders represent stages. Plain markdown files carry the prompts and context that tell a single AI agent what role to play at each step. Local scripts handle the mechanical work that does not need AI at all. The result is a system where one agent, reading the right files at the right moment, does the work that would otherwise require a multi-agent framework. This approach applies ideas from Unix pipeline design, modular decomposition, multi-pass compilation, and literate programming to the specific problem of structuring context for AI agents. The protocol is open source under the MIT license.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_16021
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Interpretable Context Methodology: Folder Structure as Agentic Architecture
Van Clief, Jake
McDermott, David
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
H.5.2; D.2.11; I.2.1
Current approaches to AI agent orchestration typically involve building multi-agent frameworks that manage context passing, memory, error handling, and step coordination through code. These frameworks work well for complex, concurrent systems. But for sequential workflows where a human reviews output at each step, they introduce engineering overhead that the problem does not require. This paper presents Model Workspace Protocol (MWP), a method that replaces framework-level orchestration with filesystem structure. Numbered folders represent stages. Plain markdown files carry the prompts and context that tell a single AI agent what role to play at each step. Local scripts handle the mechanical work that does not need AI at all. The result is a system where one agent, reading the right files at the right moment, does the work that would otherwise require a multi-agent framework. This approach applies ideas from Unix pipeline design, modular decomposition, multi-pass compilation, and literate programming to the specific problem of structuring context for AI agents. The protocol is open source under the MIT license.
title Interpretable Context Methodology: Folder Structure as Agentic Architecture
topic Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
H.5.2; D.2.11; I.2.1
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16021