Icm Architect — Design skill for Claude Code

icm-architect

A Claude skill that designs any process, idea, or problem into an **ICM workspace** — folder structure as agent architecture — or restructures an existing folder, repo, or vault into one.

ICM (Interpretable Context Methodology) replaces orchestration code with structure: numbered folders carry sequencing, hierarchy carries context scoping, plain markdown files carry state. One agent, reading the right files at the right moment, does the work of a multi-agent framework — and a human can open any folder and see exactly what state the system is in.

The workspace is a library. The routing files are the catalog: small, stable, they point at everything and store almost nothing. One librarian — one model — walks the building, and the question decides which shelf gets walked to.

• Paper: Interpretable Context Methodology: Folder Structure as Agent Architecture (Van Clief & McDermott)
• Community: Clief Notes

What it does

Two modes:

• Build — extracts the structure already present in how you describe your work (the stages, the human gates, what's stable vs. per-run), picks one of six proven forms, and scaffolds the smallest workspace that carries it.
• Restructure — audits an existing folder, classifies every file (catalog / contract / factory / product / dead), proposes a migration map for approval, then migrates and validates.

Six forms, one skeleton: **Pipeline** (production line), **Umbrella** (portfolio of pipelines), **Record library** (people/clients/sessions), **Knowledge bundle** (a navigable brain), **Context map** (an organization as a graph), **System map** (a folder later agents will edit — nouns, movements, change-impact). They compose and recurse.

Every result is validated with the **walk test**: an agent with no memory must orient, act, and report status from the files alone.

Install

**Claude Code:** copy this folder to `~/.claude/skills/icm-archit