Your plans live in one app, your tasks in another, your notes in a third, and your agent can open none of them. This chapter puts your whole operation into one tree of plain files on your machine, so nothing that runs your work is hidden from the thing doing it.
3.2.1One tree, not ten apps
Everything about your operation lives in one folder tree on your machine: your plans, your tasks, your notes, your decisions, and the app itself. Not a docs app, a task app, and a chat thread each holding a piece.
The reason is blunt: your agent can open a folder. It cannot open your Notion, your task app, or your memory of what you decided last Tuesday.
operating-base/
plans/
roadmap.md
tasks/
todo.md
decisions.md
app/ (your actual application code)
3.2.2Everything is a plain file
Every piece is a plain text file, usually markdown, which is just plain text with light formatting. Not a document locked inside some app's format.
A plan is a text file. A task list is a text file. A decision is one line in a text file. That is exactly what your agent reads and writes on its own, and what you can still open in ten years when today's apps are gone.
3.2.3One source of truth
Because it is all one tree, each thing lives in exactly one place. Your current priorities are one file, not three half-remembered versions in your head and two apps.
When something changes, you change it there. Every agent that reads it then sees the same truth, with no syncing and no "which copy is right."
3.2.4Why one system beats many
Ten apps mean ten silos your agent cannot cross, and a full picture only you can hold, in your head. One tree means the agent sees everything, moves work between the parts, and misses nothing.
It is also yours. Plain files on your own disk are portable, backed up alongside your code, and never locked inside someone else's cloud.
Do this now: pick one thing you currently track in another app, your task list or your notes, and move it into a plain text file inside your operating base. That is the first file of your system.
