Planning With Files
A Claude Code skill implementing persistent markdown planning -- the workflow attributed to Manus AI (acquired by Meta for $2B). The core principle: "Context Window = RAM (volatile, limited); Filesystem = Disk (persistent, unlimited)." Three files track state across sessions: task_plan.md (phases and progress), findings.md (research and discoveries), progress.md (session logs and test results). Hooks force the agent to re-read the plan before decisions and verify completion before stopping.
Key Quotes
"Context Window = RAM (volatile, limited); Filesystem = Disk (persistent, unlimited)"
Key Themes
The RAM/disk metaphor is the clearest articulation of why file-based persistence matters for AI agents. The context window is volatile and limited; anything important should be written to disk. The hook-based enforcement (PreToolUse re-reads the plan; completion verification before stopping) is what makes this actually work rather than just being a suggestion.
The evaluation results are striking: 96.7% pass rate with the skill vs. 6.7% without. That's the difference between a structured agent and a wandering one.
Critical Analysis
This is solving a real and important problem -- context loss across sessions -- with a simple, elegant mechanism. The 21.1k stars suggest it resonates. The three-file structure is opinionated in a useful way: you don't have to decide what to track, just use the template.
The weakness is that file-based planning doesn't scale to projects with deep dependency trees or parallel workstreams. One task_plan.md works for linear workflows; for complex projects you'd need something more like a DAG. Compare with Claude-Mem (database-backed memory with vector search) and CodeMira (similar but for OpenCode). Planning With Files trades sophistication for simplicity -- and for most single-agent workflows, simplicity wins.
The Manus attribution is interesting context. If Meta paid $2B for the company that popularized this pattern, the pattern clearly has value -- though $2B buys a lot more than a planning skill.
Sources: Planning With Files Last updated: 2026-05-14