guides.
Explore the core guidelines to master PARA Workspace. Each guide provides deep insights into the architecture and day-to-day operations.
Project Documentation Guide
How to organize, initialize, and govern technical documentation for projects within the PARA ecosystem.
Planning & Backlog Guide
How to use /plan and /backlog together to manage your projects effectively. Includes plan archiving and the Hybrid 3-File integration.
Workspace Audit
How to maintain structural integrity using the /para-audit workflow.
Workspace Governance Mechanism
Master the PARA governance mechanism. Learn about the Governing Kernel, Invariants, and the Progressive Disclosure principle using governance.md.
Smart Archive Mechanism
Non-destructive migration and safety during workspace upgrades.
Update Guide — Safe Workspace Updates
How to safely update your PARA Workspace using the agent-guided /update command, and what changes in each version.
Hybrid 3-File Architecture
Master the ultra-fast task management mechanism designed for AI Agents — Hot Lane, Backlog Compression, Token Budget, and the evolution from v1.5.2 to v1.5.3.
Defense-in-Depth: Context Recovery
How PARA Workspace uses 4 independent layers of protection to prevent rule violations after AI context truncation — from passive detection to inline file guards.
Rule Layers & Trigger Index
Understand how AI Agent rules are layered from Kernel to Project, loaded progressively via Trigger Index, and governed by the Two-Tier Rule Gate.
The Kernel — Constitution of PARA Workspace
Understand the Kernel: 11 Invariants (hard rules), 9 Heuristics (soft conventions), and Schemas that govern every workspace instance.
Ecosystem Architecture
How PARA Workspace v1.6.0 enables multi-project coordination with Ecosystem Projects — meta-projects that manage strategy, roadmaps, and shared plans across satellite projects.
Meta-Project & Ecosystem Guide
Step-by-step guide to creating and managing Ecosystem Projects — meta-projects that coordinate multiple satellite projects with shared strategy, plans, and cross-project references.
Strategy → Plan Flow
The 3-tier planning model (Strategy → Roadmap → Detail Plan) added in v1.6.1. Scale from a single plan to a full strategy system with zero configuration — everything is detected via filesystem conventions.
Glossary & Impact Map
Reference dictionary and graph-ready mapping of common terms, fields, and variables used in the PARA Workspace ecosystem.
Central Gate Architecture
The v1.6.3 architectural paradigm that shifts context discovery from unconstrained filesystem globbing to strict, field-gated loading via project.md. Introduces Path Resolution Convention.
Development Workflow
Comprehensive guide to the 4 operational flows of the PARA Workspace: Planning, Daily Dev, Release Cycle, and Operations.
Unified Agent Index
v1.6.2 introduces the Unified Agent Index — parallel skills and rules trigger indices, the agent configuration map, and Proactive Trigger Check for defense-in-depth.
Para-Kit — Agent Structure Skill
Para-Kit is a colocated skill that provides AI agents with instant access to workspace layout, project.md schema, kernel governance rules, and CLI vs Workflow routing — without scanning the entire kernel.