Imported from therealestmatthew/d-system (_tmpagent/AGENTS.md). Install upstream with npx skills add therealestmatthew/d-system --skill _tmpagent. Copyright stays with the author.

_tmpagent/ — shared files for agents across worktrees

This directory is tracked in git. That is its entire reason to exist: an ignored file does not reach a worktree, so anything an agent in ../d-system-worktrees/ needs to read must be committed. _working/ is the opposite — gitignored, local to the primary checkout, and the owner's material. See PLAN-015.

Nothing here is scanned by governance. src/governance/__main__.py walks docs/ and brain/ only, so files here need no code, no front matter and no catalog entry.

This contract is enforced by convention, not by a check. No test reads claims.jsonl and no validator fails on it. That is a deliberate choice while the directory is small, and it means the ledger is only as good as the agents writing to it. If it starts drifting from reality, the fix is a check, not a stricter rule.

The rules

1. A file here is read-only once it is active. Create it, edit it freely while it is still draft, then flip it to active before anyone else reads it. After that its content is frozen. If an active file must change, create a successor and name the file it replaces in the new created line's purpose.

   Git does not track the write bit, so this cannot be a file permission — a chmod -w is lost on the next clone. It is a promise, and claims.jsonl is where the promise is recorded.

2. Every reader claims, and every claim is closed explicitly. A claim names where the file is being used, not just who is using it, so a claim nobody closed can still be investigated. Plan dependencies are claimed and released the same way as branches — a plan reaching complete is not the only way a claim ends, and deriving it would leave the other paths permanently open.

3. A file is eligible for deletion only when every claim on it is closed. Eligibility is derived, never written: latest status is active, and every claimed has a later matching released. Deleting the file is a separate act that writes a removed line saying why.

4. Never delete a file with an open claim, and never close another agent's claim to make a file eligible. If a claim looks abandoned, check whether its branch still exists — see below.

claims.jsonl

One append-only JSONL ledger for the whole directory, one JSON object per line, newest last. It mirrors _data/ideas.jsonl deliberately: append only, never edited, never reordered, and current state is folded by replaying it in order.

A claim is addressed by (file, kind, ref) — a given branch or plan holds at most one open claim on a file at a time, so a released line matches its claimed line by those three fields and needs no identifier of its own. Claiming again after releasing is legal; replay in order and the last event for a triple wins.

Worked sequence

{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"created","at":"2026-09-07T09:00:00-04:00","by":"agent-slate","branch":"dev","purpose":"Step detail for phase-scope-01; too task-specific to govern"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"activated","at":"2026-09-07T09:20:00-04:00","by":"agent-slate","branch":"dev"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"claimed","at":"2026-09-07T09:21:00-04:00","by":"agent-slate","branch":"dev","kind":"plan","ref":"doc-ephemeral-working-plans"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"claimed","at":"2026-09-07T09:22:00-04:00","by":"agent-slate","branch":"agent/phase-scope-01","kind":"branch","ref":"agent/phase-scope-01"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"released","at":"2026-09-07T17:40:00-04:00","by":"agent-slate","branch":"agent/phase-scope-01","kind":"branch","ref":"agent/phase-scope-01"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"released","at":"2026-09-08T11:05:00-04:00","by":"repository-owner","branch":"dev","kind":"plan","ref":"doc-ephemeral-working-plans"}
{"file":"extraction-notes.md","event":"removed","at":"2026-09-08T11:06:00-04:00","by":"repository-owner","branch":"dev","reason":"phase-scope-01 complete; nothing in it outlived the task"}

The claimed line for the branch is written from that branch, which is why by and branch carry different information and both are required.

Checking the ledger

There is no command for this yet. Read claims.jsonl and fold it in order.

Is this file eligible for deletion? Its latest status event is activated, and every (file, kind, ref) triple with a claimed has a later released. If so, delete it and append removed. If not, the open triples are your answer for why not.

Is a claim abandoned? Check whether its branch still exists:

git branch --list 'agent/*'
git worktree list

A branch claim whose branch is gone is stale — the work it belonged to was merged or abandoned, and nothing is reading the file from there any more. That is a strong signal but not permission: close it deliberately with a released line naming yourself, or ask the owner. A plan claim outlives branches by design; check the plan's status in the catalog instead.

What does this branch still hold? Filter for kind: "branch" with your branch as ref, and release every open one before you finish. An agent that ends a session without releasing its claims leaves files that nobody can clean up without investigating.