LayerFS：AI 程式代理的檔案系統

Ephemerality: scaling multi-agent development beyond imagination

Ephemeral Workspaces.
Durable Shared History.

LayerFS is the substrate under your agents. Each one mounts a complete, writable Workspace over shared committed history, does its work, commits what it changed, and goes away.

• Ephemeral workspaces
• Durable results
• Massive parallelism

LayerFSandDSHLayerFSandPisoon

Why LayerFS

Ten ideas, one filesystem.

six core · four supporting

Compute exists only while a command runs.

• Compute: Agents spend ~80% thinking, ~10% in Bash.
• FS: Each file tool call is one atomic Store op.
• Sandbox: Each Bash tool call mounts an ephemeral workspace, then commits.

Agents on different computers share one serverless Store.

• Shared storage: Every agent commits to one Store, with no DB server.
• Distributed computing: Each agent runs on its own computer.

One project, many branches. One branch, many agents.

• Commits: Every tool call is a commit on its branch.
• Conflict: A same-file clash is refused with Conflict.
• Blame: Each line names the step that wrote it.

Fork recursively any commit, at any depth.

• Zero cost: A fork is metadata and copies no files.
• Recursive: A filesystem for RSI agents and recursive exploration for RL training.

10 copies compress into 0.31.

• Dedup: Each content chunk is stored once.
• Compression: The stored chunks shrink further.
• Ratio: 10 copies → 1.05 dedup → 0.31 compression wtf???

Dependencies come with every mount. No wasting time for re-installation.

• Git / other AgentFS: Drops ignored files; reinstalls.
• LayerFS: Ignored files stay in every commit.
• Comparison: ~5 min to install vs 0.05 s to mount.

Four supporting ideas

• Auto CheckpointsEvery step an agent takes is a checkpoint to return to.Every call: Each file call is a commit; each Bash call commits when it ends.No noise: A call that changes nothing commits nothing.Rewind: Fork from any checkpoint and read any file as it was.
• Append-only ObjectsSaved objects are never rewritten. The Store only grows.Content-addressed: An object is named by the hash of its bytes.Sealed: A written pack is never updated or deleted.Safe to share: Branches share objects; readers never wait for the writer.
• Conflict Rules (.lww)Name the files that should never conflict. The newest edit wins./.lww: Gitignore-style rules at the root of the tree.Newer wins: A matched file changed on both sides takes the newer edit.For: Lockfiles, build output and caches.
• Big File, Small EditAn edit costs the size of the edit, not the size of the file.Overlay: A write keeps only the bytes it wrote.Commit: Only the edited extents and their tree path are rebuilt.Storage: The rest of the file is shared with its old version.

Agent tool calls and their history

HISTORYmain @ L00 commits · 0 live

main is the green middle bough; each publish adds a Layer bandLayer · a band on mainCommit · a leafBranch · a boughmerge · grafts backpublish · adds a bandstopped · bare twigclick a name tag to focus its Branch

store.statsmain · read-only

dedupe1.5×

compression3.32×

stored9.4 MB

file10.0 MB

logical 48.0 MB · canonical 31.2 MB · metadata 420 KB · free 180 KB · 0 commits · 1 layers

orchestratorproject · branch