Open Workspace Intelligence Specification
OWIS (Open Workspace Intelligence Specification) is an open interoperability standard that normalizes software workspace context. It enables consistent and deterministic project understanding for both humans and AI IDE Agents.
Today, AI software engineering is limited not by code generation capability, but by the ability of AI assistants to understand projects deterministically. OWIS provides a neutral, structured layer between the software codebase and AI runtimes, establishing a canonical source of truth and clear guidelines for safe workspace mutations.
- Describe: Define how AI understands a workspace.
- Generate: Produce a canonical, deterministic representation of a project.
- Reduce: Eliminate context loss, architecture drift, and AI slop.
- Enable: Ensure seamless interoperability between various AI IDE Agents.
- Establish: Set up a solid foundation for tooling, validation, and governance.
- Workspace First: The workspace is the primary unit of analysis.
- Knowledge Before Execution: AI must understand the project before making mutations.
- Documentation as Primary Signal: System design and constraints are defined by documentation.
- Intelligence Before Mutation: Planning is required before any source code changes are executed.
- Deterministic Understanding: AI reasoning must be reproducible.
This repository is organized according to the Document Architecture Specification (DAS):
- Project Constitution: Core vision, mission, and guiding principles.
- Documentation Governance: Rules governing specifications as a controlled system.
- Architecture Index: Machine-readable directory map of the specification layers.
- Document Architecture Specification (DAS): Structure, layer definitions, and read hierarchy.
- Core Architecture Specification (CAS): Conceptual model and workspace ontology.
- Reference Architecture Specification (RAS): Component mappings and runtime pipelines.
- Universal Agent Runtime Specification (UARS): Operating contract governing agent mutations.
- Workspace Intelligence Report Specification (WIR): Canonical output data schemas.
To get started with OWIS as a developer, contributor, or AI agent, please read the Getting Started Guide.
This guide details:
- The repository structure and document reading order.
- The current status of different specification phases.
- Guidelines for contributing specs or schemas.
Current Release: OWIS v0.1.0
OWIS has reached its Public Specification Baseline. Available via:
- GitHub Release: v0.1.0
- NPM CLI:
npm install -g @prodakwah/owis - NPM SDK:
npm install @prodakwah/owis-sdk - Documentation Portal: https://zaditprodakwah.github.io/owis/
- Issues - Bug reports and feature requests.
- Discussions - Q&A, ideas, and general communication.
- Projects - Tracking features, RFCs, and release planning.
- Wiki - Additional community-maintained documentation.