FISS — File-based Intellectual Space Standard

Intellectual space is the logical system of project knowledge, rules, state, context, and artifacts that supports collaboration between humans and AI agents. It is independent of storage technology.

In practice, its foundation can be organized as a FISS/ directory in the project root. Within this directory, the team maintains useful context and links to other sources: code, documentation, task trackers, and tools.

FISS (File-based Intellectual Space Standard) is the filesystem-based realization of the intellectual-space model. It describes how to organize the FISS/ directory so that a team member or AI agent can locate needed information and understand when to read it.

The standard defines organization and navigation; the project team defines the content. FISS does not prescribe product architecture, development methodology, toolchains, lifecycles, or project documents beyond two required root files. Existing issue tracking, documentation, and version-control systems continue to fulfill their functions.

In this document, "MUST", "REQUIRED", and "SHALL" indicate normative requirements; "SHOULD" and "RECOMMENDED" indicate recommendations; "MAY" indicates optional choices. Examples do not require reproducing their exact structure.