Open Workplace
An open proposal for durable human-agent workplaces.
Not workspace. Workplace.
A workspace usually gives an agent a scope to run. A Workplace gives the work identity, ownership, continuity and relationships that outlive the occupant.
Start a new session. Change the model. Bring in another specialist. The work should not lose its place each time the execution changes.
Workplace-first makes that durable place a first-class design concern. Open Workplace is the shared, implementation-neutral model behind it.
Read The Workplace-first Proposal
The provider should not own the workplace
Current agentic systems are good at equipping execution: a model, tools, a sandbox, memory, Skills and a session. They often become the de facto system of record because the work has no other explicit owner.
That joins two responsibilities which can change independently:
Provider / Harness model · tools · sandbox · execution · session hot state
Workplace durable context · organization · continuity · relationshipsThe provider may remember the session. The Workplace must remember the work.
Provider history, cache and projections can remain useful interfaces. They do not have to be the only canonical source of the work.
Change the center of gravity
Change the center of gravity
The same agentic ecosystem can be composed around two different ownership boundaries.
The illustration uses familiar references as examples of six categories:
These names illustrate the topology only. Their presence does not claim endorsement, tested compatibility or required adoption.
Responsibilities and composition, not a required stack or a judgment on the tools already in it.
This does not replace models, runtimes, harnesses, memory, Skills or MCP. It changes what must survive them.
Endroit is a lightweight, local-first framework for building and operating file-based Open Workplaces. It resolves owned Markdown and JSON into inspectable Codex and Claude projections without transferring ownership to either provider.
HACP remains an independent optional protocol for explicit moves and controls.
One model, three lenses
See who owns what
Relationship ≠ containment ≠ filesystem ≠ ownership.
- Home: one concrete Workplace, shared constitution and trust boundary.
- Member: durable human belonging within a Home.
- Desk: one Member's personal continuity, staging and local access.
- Room: one durable domain and its Material.
- Meeting: one bounded work event, ephemeral by default.
- Occupant: temporary participation in a Meeting.
- Role: a temporary mandate adopted by an Occupant.
- Equipment: a reusable way of working, never the owner of its result.
- Material: an addressable source or result that may remain.
- Route: a declared relationship and access path to a Site.
- Site: sovereign external truth, history, permissions and delivery.
The relationships are not filesystem containment or shared ownership. A Site remains sovereign even when its files sit physically inside a Home.
Decide what remains
A Meeting produces candidates, not automatic memory. The human controls what crosses into durable continuity:
ephemeral → retained → accepted → delivered
└────────────→ archived- Retained Material remains inspectable without becoming authoritative.
- Accepted Material becomes current for its owner.
- Delivered records an authorized effect after the Site result is observed.
- Archived Material leaves the active working set without silent deletion.
Your work should not inherit the lifecycle of the model that produced it.
Selective continuity is how a Workplace compounds. Retained Material, accepted decisions, reusable Equipment, verified Routes and observed Site results can prepare the next Meeting without turning every output into memory.
One model, one real Home
One Home already uses this shape across independent repositories and projects L1 surfaces for Codex and Claude without requiring a persistent agent, daemon or SaaS. Its files remain legible to the human while each provider receives its own interface.
Endroit is a declared implementation in alpha. It uses local files, deterministic composition, provider projections and explicit Routes.
An open proposal
Open Workplace is initiated by The VZion. It is a model and public Proposal, not a standard, foundation, community, registry, marketplace or certification program. It makes no claim of broad adoption or unique ownership of the word workplace.
The model should change when real use exposes a missing owner, an ambiguous boundary or an invariant that prevents a legitimate implementation.