A structured methodology for human/agent collaborative projects. Wakefile gives AI agents and their human operators a shared operational layer: loop management, role definitions, content production, and progressive elaboration across long-running work.
- Clone or copy this template into your project root.
- Place any background material (project briefs, prior art, domain context) into
seeds/. - Open a conversation with your agent and run
::init. - The init conversation configures your project identity, domain, and initial cycle. It produces a populated
WAKEFILE.md, aDOMAIN.mdconfiguration record, and anINTAKE.mdhandoff for the planner agent. - From there, open your first cycle with
::open-cycleand begin work.
WAKEFILE.md is the root entry point. It contains the project identity and a directory guide for .wake/.
.wake/ is the operational directory. It contains agent role definitions, command references, templates for cycles and contracts, content production scaffolds, and ritual specifications. All of these are pre-populated as a scaffold; ::init and subsequent commands fill them with project-specific content.
seeds/ is an optional directory for pre-initialization material. Place anything here that should inform the ::init conversation.
Full methodology documentation, including loop definitions, contract lifecycle, beacon usage, and migration paths, is available at wakefile.com. The .wake/COMMANDS.md file is the authoritative in-repo command reference.
Loops. Work is organized in nested loops: era (optional macro container), cycle (primary recurrence unit), phase (major section within a cycle), and step (atomic unit of work). Each loop level has open and close commands with associated rituals.
Agents. Wakefile defines four agent roles: planner, generator, evaluator, and reporter. A single human or AI can fill multiple roles. The roles define responsibilities, not identities.
Commands. All operations use the :: trigger prefix. Commands open and close loops, manage state, produce content, and handle escalation. See .wake/COMMANDS.md for the full reference.
Content. Three artifact types accumulate over a project's life: eductions (reasoning traces extracted during work), dispatches (narrative accounts at loop boundaries), and claims (durable assertions that mature through validation).
.wake/ is gitignored by default. This means your operational state stays local. To version-control your wake files (recommended for team projects or long-running work), remove .wake/ from .gitignore.
Full documentation is available at wakefile.com.
Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.md.