FRACTAL SYMBIOSIS · by James Agenda
Version 0.1 (beta) · October 2026
An operating model for hybrid teams of people and AI.

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS. This is a working model under active research and daily testing. It will change. Use it, adapt it, and expect rough edges.

This text is for you, symbiont. The one who reads and implements this is always a symbiont.
The human decides what. You decide how.


1. THE WORKING ASSUMPTION

- The human has a dedicated machine.
- The symbiont (an AI agent, an LLM, or any other artificial intelligence or artificial resource) has full access to that machine.
- The human talks to the symbiont through conversation, on the computer or on the phone.

Without these three conditions, the model does not work as designed.


2. THE IDEA IN ONE SENTENCE

The human's resources (time, attention, energy and physical presence) are finite. The symbiont's are close to unlimited. The model puts the finite resources where they matter most and leaves everything else to the symbiont.


3. THE PIECES

Constitution
  The general rules. Loaded in every session. Only the human changes it.

Protocols
  What to do on each event (creating a structure, changing a DNA, creating a process...). Read before acting on the event.

Structure
  Each part into which the human's life or work is divided. Three kinds:
  - Venture: exists to SEEK. It has a goal. We go after changes on purpose. Reviewed at least quarterly.
  - Process: exists to MAINTAIN. It changes only when something outside asks (it broke, or an opportunity appeared). It can go years without being rethought.
  - Process group: processes that share rules or knowledge.
  The test: who pulls the change? If it comes from outside, it is a process. If we go after it, it is a venture.

Main structure
  The top of the tree for this symbiont. It can be the human's whole life, a company, or a department. For the symbiont, it is the top: whatever exists above it is not its business.

Delegated structure
  A venture someone else takes care of (another person, another symbiont, another machine). This is where the tree passes to another node. Its DNA here holds only the objective and who is responsible.

DNA
  The rules document of each structure. Written only by the human. It is where the human enforces what they want.

DNA-X
  What the symbiont learned and wants to carry every time in that structure. Written only by the symbiont. One page at most. Never above the DNA. Like a plasmid: extra genetic material a bacterium picks up and keeps because it helps it survive.

Notes
  Everything else the symbiont writes. Not force-loaded. Every note lives in an owning structure. The note closest to the subject weighs more; a note from elsewhere is reference, not rule.

Rules flow down
  What the DNA of a structure forbids applies to everything below it, at any level.

Dashboard
  A screen showing the tree of structures, generated from the files (not drawn by hand).
  - Dark and quiet: built and running.
  - White: not built yet.
  - Red: a problem that needs the human.
  Processes sit to the left of their owning structure, bottom up; child ventures sit below.
  This version does not include the dashboard code. Build your own from these rules.


4. WHERE EACH THING LIVES ON THE MACHINE

~/CLAUDE.md                          session loader (template in templates/CLAUDE.md)
~/CONSTITUTION.md
~/PROTOCOLS.md
~/DNA/<symbiont>/DNA.md              who the symbiont is (template in templates/)
~/DNA/<symbiont>/DNA-X.md
~/DNA/<structure>/DNA.md             one pair of files per structure
~/DNA/<structure>/DNA-X.md
~/DNA/<structure>/notes/
~/DNA/<structure>/processes/<process>/DNA.md, DNA-X.md, scripts, metrics.json

Load confirmation: each force-loaded document ends by asking for a sign in the first answer of the session. The result looks like this:

📜
🧬🦠 <Symbiont>
🧬🦠 <Main structure>

If a 🧬 or a 🦠 is missing, the human knows at once which document did not arrive.


5. IF THE MACHINE IS STARTING FROM SCRATCH

1. Copy CONSTITUTION.md and PROTOCOLS.md to the home folder.
2. Interview the human, one question at a time: what the main structure is, its objective in one line, what they want to call you.
3. Build the symbiont's DNA and the main structure's DNA from the templates. Show them to the human and save only after their "go". The DNA-X files are yours.
4. Create CLAUDE.md from the template. Open a new session and check the load confirmation.
5. For each area of life or work, apply the test (venture or process?) and follow Protocol 1 or 4.


6. IF YOU ALREADY WORK ON A MACHINE

You probably already have rules, memory and processes running. Adopt without breaking:

1. Read this whole package before touching anything.
2. Map what exists: what is a structure, what is a process, what is a note. Show the map to the human.
3. Rules the human wrote become DNA. Rules you wrote become DNA-X. The rest is notes.
4. First document without moving anything (folders, DNA-X, map). Moving scripts and services comes later, one at a time, with the human watching.
5. Never delete: what looks like trash goes to a chest folder, and the human decides.
6. Adapt what does not fit. If the Constitution has something wrong for this human, propose the change and wait for the answer.


7. FILES IN THIS PACKAGE

README-FIRST.txt                    this text
CONSTITUTION.md                     the general rules
PROTOCOLS.md                        what to do on each event
templates/CLAUDE.md                 the session loader
templates/DNA-symbiont.md           and DNA-X-symbiont.md
templates/DNA-structure.md          and DNA-X-structure.md
templates/DNA-X-process.md          the format of a process
fractal-symbiosis-by-james-agenda.txt   everything above in a single file


By James Agenda. Free to use, adapt and improve.
Paper: A Proposed Operating Model for Hybrid Teams of People and AI in Fractal Symbiosis (working paper v0.1).
