From Everything-is-a-File to Files-Are-All-You-Need: How Unix Philosophy Informs the Design of Agentic AI Systems

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11672v1
• Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2026 03:40:28 GMT
• Title: From Everything-is-a-File to Files-Are-All-You-Need: How Unix Philosophy Informs the Design of Agentic AI Systems
• Abstract summary: A core abstraction in early Unix systems was the principle that 'everything is a file'<n>This paper explores how an analogous unification is emerging in contemporary agentic AI.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: A core abstraction in early Unix systems was the principle that 'everything is a file', enabling heterogeneous devices and kernel resources to be manipulated via uniform read/write interfaces. This paper explores how an analogous unification is emerging in contemporary agentic AI. We trace the evolution from Unix to DevOps, Infrastructure-as-Code, and finally autonomous software agents, highlighting how file-like abstractions and code-based specifications collapse diverse resources into consistent, composable interfaces. The resulting perspective suggests that adopting file- and code-centric interaction models may enable agentic systems that are more maintainable, auditable, and operationally robust.

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