What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to introduce and implement a robust architectural pattern for multi-agent coordination.

June 3, 2026Open Access

Filesystem-Mediated Multi-Agent Coordination: PID Registries, Cross-Repo Path Aliases, and Idempotent .env Injection

Key Points

The aim is to introduce and implement a robust architectural pattern for multi-agent coordination.
Implementation of PID registry for liveness detection across sessions.
Use of path alias systems for resolution of current working directories across repositories.
Integration of structured .env mutation for seamless third-party service integration.
Filesystem primitives demonstrated enhanced resilience in asynchronous coordination scenarios.
Increased debuggability over traditional message-passing methods.
Achieved effective cross-language coordination without cumbersome protocol negotiations.

Abstract

We present Filesystem-Mediated Multi-Agent Coordination (FM-MAC), the architectural pattern production-implemented in MaiiaM Alchemist v0.4.1, using five filesystem primitives as coordination substrate: PID registry (userData/service-pids/) for cross-session liveness detection via process.kill(pid, 0); root: path alias system for cross-repository CWD resolution; idempotent structured .env mutation for integrating third-party services without protocol negotiation; filesystem presence probing for zero-latency capability detection; and typed artifact files as durable cross-language asynchronous coordination contracts. For asynchronous, cross-language, resilience-critical coordination, filesystem primitives provide superior resilience, debuggability, and language-portability over message-passing alternatives.

Filesystem-Mediated Multi-Agent Coordination: PID Registries, Cross-Repo Path Aliases, and Idempotent .env Injection

Key Points

Abstract

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