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Charter

Mission

The Agent Filesystem Interface (AFI) project defines a vendor-neutral specification for exposing arbitrary data sources to AI agents as a POSIX-shaped filesystem, plus reference implementations, conformance tools, and the governance to keep the standard portable across vendors.

Scope

In scope:

  • The AFI specification (this repository, docs/specification/)
  • Reference transport bindings (MCP, HTTP, FUSE, SSH)
  • A public conformance test kit
  • Adapter notes for existing systems that fit the AFI shape

Out of scope:

  • Building a hosted service or product on top of AFI
  • Endorsing or ranking specific providers
  • Defining higher-level agent frameworks or retrieval systems
  • Anything that would tie AFI's success to a single vendor's roadmap

Working assumptions

The project assumes:

  • LLM agents will continue treating filesystems as a primary exploration interface
  • The virtual-FS-over-data pattern is going to converge with or without standardization; the choice is between coordinating early and discovering incompatible shapes later
  • No single vendor should own the resulting standard

v1.0 gate

draft becomes a numbered version (0.1, 0.2, …) via routine AEP cycles. 0.x becomes 1.0 when all of the following are true:

  1. Two or more independent conforming implementations exist across two or more organizations
  2. At least one implementation is not maintained by AFI core maintainers or by any organization that has held a core-maintainer seat in the past six months
  3. The conformance test kit is at v1.0 and both implementations pass all scenarios at the level they declare
  4. A neutral home has been identified and accepted the project
  5. No accepted AEP proposing breaking changes is still open

Non-goals as commitments

The project explicitly commits to not:

  • Add features solely because current models struggle without them (see design principles)
  • Fragment into multiple competing shapes for the same operation (see design principles)
  • Accept new spec features without at least one working implementation (see design principles)
  • Reserve any project role for a specific organization

Trademark

The name "AFI" and the tagline "Agent Filesystem Interface" are dedicated to the project. On donation to a neutral home, they transfer to that host.

Amendment

This charter is amended via the AEP process. Charter amendments require, at minimum, a 30-day comment period and unanimous approval by active maintainers (not simple majority).