Projects Have Memory Too

A Git-native architectural pattern for separating project coordination state from implementation state.

Projects should own their durable coordination state, independently of the agents, models, and tools that participate in the work.

This matters especially in agentic coding. Today's AI coding agents have tools, memory, and orchestration.

Projects need something different: durable, shared, reviewable coordination state.

The Coordination Repository Pattern does this using a dedicated Git repository.

At a glance

        Humans · automation · AI agents
                     |
                     v
          Coordination Repository
  requirements · decisions · work status · evidence
                     |
              links to / governs
                     v
          Implementation Ecosystem
   code repositories · reviews · CI · releases · docs

Why a separate repository?

A separate repository gives coordination state an independent lifecycle:

• coordination changes can be reviewed without touching source branches;
• one coordination domain can span one or many implementation repositories;
• access, history, retention, and sensitivity rules can differ from code;
• durable project state remains portable outside any one hosted tool.

Read next

• Why? Agentic Coding Needs Durable Coordination State
• How? Coordination Repository Pattern
• Compare: Related practices and alternatives
• Implementation: pi-env