How we lay out a project so agents can navigate, find context, and make decisions. Naming conventions, context files, status files: the boring parts that make everything else work.
If Protocol 03 says the agent is a folder, Protocol 04 says how you arrange those folders determines whether anything actually works.
This is the boring protocol. It is the protocol participants will try to skip. It is also the one that separates a setup that holds together for a year from a setup that turns into chaos after week three.
Every Infinite Leverage project has the same top-level shape. Same names. Same places. If you have seen one IL project, you can find your way around any IL project in 90 seconds.
These are the boring rules. They are also the ones that decide whether your project still makes sense to a fresh agent (or a fresh hire) six months from now.
Cataloguing is the boring protocol. People want to skip to building. The few who do not skip it are the ones whose projects are still legible after a year.
A line: a well-catalogued project ages like a library. A badly catalogued project ages like a junk drawer.
You can do this in a brand-new repo or alongside an existing project. The goal is to set up the folder shape, write a one-page CLAUDE.md, and watch the next agent inherit the conventions.
In your project root, run: mkdir -p docs/{plans,product,qa,operations} brand .claude/agents public src.
Open CLAUDE.md at the root. Write three lines: what this project is, the one-name-per-concept list (Epic vs Ticket, etc), and any non-obvious rule ("no em dashes in copy, no periods at end of headings").
Copy AGENTS.md from your nearest existing project or the IL template. This is the file that tells every agent the cross-project rules.
In .claude/agents/, copy one of your existing agents (writer, PM, whichever you use most). The folder is the agent.
Open Claude Code in the project. Ask: "Read CLAUDE.md and tell me the rules of this project in three bullets." Watch Claude load the file and play back your conventions.
A fresh project with the IL shape, CLAUDE.md teaching every agent the conventions, and the first agent ready to run. Future-you and every future agent inherit the layout for free.
You rename one file on purpose, watch an agent fail to find it, then restore the name and document the convention so it never happens again.