Workspace Management

Skill for managing project directories (workspaces) where Animas perform work.

Concept

An Anima normally lives in its "home" (~/.animaworks/animas/{name}/). When working on a project, it "goes to the workplace" (workspace) to do the job.

Workspaces are stored in a shared registry (config.json workspaces section) and referenced by alias#hash.

Aliases and Hashes

• Alias: A short name assigned by humans (e.g., myproject)
• Hash: The first 8 hex digits of the path's SHA-256, auto-generated (e.g., 3af4be6e)
• Qualified form: myproject#3af4be6e — zero collision risk
• Tool arguments accept alias only, qualified form, hash only, or absolute path

Operations

Register

A top-level Anima with an explicit human instruction uses grant_workspace_access:

{
  "alias": "finance-dashboard",
  "path": "/absolute/path/to/project",
  "make_default": true
}

This tool updates the shared workspace registry, adds the path to the target Anima's permissions.json.file_roots, and optionally updates status.json.default_workspace.

Note: Registration fails if the directory does not exist. Note: read_memory_file(path="config.json") reads the Anima-local config.json. Do not use it for the shared workspace registry.

List

Use core.workspace.list_workspaces() to inspect the shared registry. Do not use read_memory_file(path="config.json").

Remove

Treat removal as an administrator operation. For normal work, avoid overwriting an existing alias and register a new alias instead.

Change Your Default Workspace

A top-level Anima sets make_default: true when calling grant_workspace_access. Non-top-level Animas cannot grant themselves workspace access; ask the top-level Anima via a human instruction.

Assign to Subordinates (for Supervisors)

A top-level Anima with an explicit human instruction can grant access to a subordinate or descendant by setting target_anima:

{
  "alias": "finance-dashboard",
  "path": "/absolute/path/to/project",
  "target_anima": "ritsu",
  "make_default": true
}

Tool Usage

• machine_run: Specify alias or qualified form in working_directory
• submit_tasks: Specify alias in each task's workspace field
• delegate_task: Specify alias in the workspace field

Notes

• Directories are validated both at registration and at resolution time
• Attempting to register a non-existent directory results in an error
• Overwriting an alias changes the hash, so old hash references will fail to resolve
• Humans don't need to remember hashes — alias alone is sufficient