planning-with-files

You can maintain task planning state by persisting context in disk-based markdown files. This approach creates task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md to coordinate phases and ensure session recovery for long-running research projects.

File-based working memory is the practice of storing planning artifacts on disk to keep goals and context intact. It manages complex tasks by tracking phases and discoveries in markdown files across many tool calls.

To recover an interrupted workflow, use supporting scripts that restore session history from progress.md. This automatic recovery mechanism reads your persisted planning state and resumes the multi-phase task tracking.

You need persistent planning artifacts when executing multi-tool operations that exceed five steps. Complex workflows and long-running research projects require on-disk memory to prevent context loss across sessions.

Yes, this file-based planning approach works without external dependencies. It relies solely on creating and maintaining markdown files in your project directory to manage complex tasks and support recovery.