AI‑native · Promptware OS · 2025

One line boots your AI‑native OS.

Promptware OS is a GitHub‑hosted library of personas, skills, and Deno tools for AI agents. Instead of copying prompts between repos, you give each agent a single URL. It learns the rest by reading the library.

Join the Promptware Hackathon View architecture (like /usr for agents)

Bootloader · agents.md one line

// Promptware OS boot line
Your detailed persona and skills registry is documented at:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ShipFail/promptware/main/library/agents/press0.md.
When you need more context, fetch and read that URL. It links to your mini-library index
and to skill pages that may contain remote Deno scripts you can ask the user to run.

Promptware filesystem

Minimal v0 layout · grows like a Unix tree

AI‑readable · human‑readable

ShipFail/promptware/
  library/
    index.md              # global library index (for maintainers)
    categories/           # optional: domain-based indexes
    shelves/              # optional: shelf-level indexes
    skills/               # skills as markdown “books”
      core.coding-style.md
      domain.publishing-basics.md
      domain.book-layout.md
    agents/
      press0.md           # persona = who am I?
      press0.index.md     # mini-library = what do I read?
      mvw.md
      mvw.index.md
  scripts/                # Deno tools with clear --help
    format_ts.ts
    book_layout/generate_layout.ts

Think of agents/ as your kernels, skills/ as your manpages, and scripts/ as your /bin.

Why Promptware OS?

Unix unified hardware and processes. Promptware OS unifies agents and their prompts: one shared library, many co‑founders.

One library, many repos

Stop copy‑pasting agents.md and skills across projects. Maintain one Promptware library; let every repo read from it by URL.

cp prompts/ repo1/ repo2/ repo3/ ❌
read Promptware/ via URL ✅

Persona vs bookshelf

Separate an agent’s persona (who am I?) from its mini‑library (what do I read?). Load many personas together; only pull their books when needed.

Cheaper tokens. Cleaner cognition. Better multi‑agent systems.

Tools are scripts, not magic

Every tool is just a Deno script with a clear --help. Skill docs only store the name and URL; the tool describes itself.

Markdown for humans & agents; CLI help for precise contracts.

How it works

Promptware OS treats GitHub as a library and Deno as a runtime. Agents navigate like humans in a library: persona → mini‑library index → skill → tool.

1

Persona boot

An agent starts from a single line in agents.md pointing to its persona file (e.g., agents/press0.md) in Promptware.
2

Mini‑library lookup

The persona points to a mini‑library index (e.g., agents/press0.index.md) that lists core skills and shelves. The agent only fetches this when it needs more capability.
3

Skill & tool execution

From the mini‑library index, the agent opens a specific skill (Markdown doc). If it references a tool, the agent asks to run the Deno URL with --help, then builds a concrete command.

Global Deno tool usage rule

When you want to use any tool from Promptware:

Find its URL in the skill doc.
Run it with deno run --allow-all <url> --help.
Read the help text, then propose a concrete command.

Skills stay lean; tools speak for themselves.

Persona file (press0.md)

---
id: agent.press0
type: persona
title: "Press0 AI Co-founder"
version: "0.1.0"
---

You are the AI co-founder for Press0, a book-centric publishing product.

When you need more context about your skills and tools, consult your
mini-library index:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ShipFail/promptware/main/library/agents/press0.index.md

Mini‑library (press0.index.md)

# Press0 Skill Index

## Core skills
- ShipFail Coding Style
- Publishing Workflow Basics
- Book Layout Automation

## Optional shelves
- Layout & Print Shelf
- Testing & CI Shelf

Promptware philosophy

Unix had a simple philosophy: do one thing well, compose small tools, and speak plain text. Promptware OS applies the same spirit to AI‑native systems.

A skill is a small, well‑defined behavior. Keep it focused and composable.
A tool is a script with a clear --help. No hidden magic.
Markdown is the universal interface. The same doc works for humans and agents.
URLs are the syscalls. Fetching a URL is the primitive operation of Promptware OS.
One line boots the system. Everything else is discoverable.

From toy to OS

Early Unix and Minix started as toys. Promptware OS is a similar toy for the AI era: a small filesystem of skills and tools that can grow into a stable, opinionated OS for agents.

Today it’s a repo. Tomorrow it’s an ecosystem. Eventually, it can be the / of your AI stack.

Promptware in one sentence

Promptware OS is to agents what /usr and manpages are to Unix: a shared, text‑first library everyone agrees to read.

Build Promptware OS with us

We’re at the Minix stage of Promptware OS: early, hackable, and wide open for ideas. The goal of this hackathon is to turn a repo into the root filesystem of future AI co‑founders.

• Add new skills as Markdown books under library/skills/.
• Design personas and mini‑libraries for your own agents.
• Ship Deno tools with beautiful --help output.
• Experiment with categories, shelves, and tag indexes.

View repo on GitHub Read the Manifesto

Built under the ShipFail umbrella · Designed to evolve like Linux: from a personal experiment to a shared OS.

Hackathon checklist

Create ShipFail/promptware with library/ and scripts/.
Define at least one persona + mini‑library (press0.md, press0.index.md).
Add 3–5 skills as Markdown books in library/skills/.
Ship one Deno tool with a beautiful --help.
Wire a real agent to Promptware with the one‑liner boot line.

If we do this right, in a few years people will say: “Remember when Promptware was just a repo?”