# The Institute — Shared Vault

Shared knowledge base for Elliot's agent team ("The Institute"). Organized by
**life-domain, not by worker**: agents are workers on shared projects, so folders
reflect the domain of the work (PhD, fitness, nutrition…), not who did it.

## Layout (canonical)

```
00_Inbox/        capture — everything lands here first, then gets filed
10_System/       dashboards, templates, design systems, branding assets
20_Schedule/     daily notes, time management
30_PhD/          the thesis (see subfolders below)
40_Personal/     Aesthetics / Fitness / Nutrition

30_PhD/
  01_Workbench/    data (raw/processed), notes, scripts
  02_Deliverables/ presentations, reports, papers
  03_Meetings/
  04_Logistics/    inbox / processed / archive
  05_Literature/   inbox / processed / archive   ← Clara
  06_Projects/     code repos                    ← Dexter
```

## Editing discipline (why there's no merge chaos)

1. **Pull before you work, commit often, push after.** Small commits, scoped messages.
2. **Read-only on files you don't own.** Agents read Elliot's personal files and plan docs; they never rewrite them.
3. **Hand off via `00_Inbox/` notes or Kanban comments**, not by editing another agent's in-progress draft in place.
4. **Binaries are not versioned** (see `.gitignore`) — meshes, checkpoints, renders live on disk and back up separately.

## Meta-files (owned by Eleanor / the Institute, not domain content)

- `TEAM.md` — roster + who owns what.
- `README.md` — this file.
- `.gitignore` — what never enters git.
- `_institute/` — team-wide decision log, handoff notes, runbooks.

## Backups

The vault is a git repo: `git clone` / `git bundle` is a full export at any time.
A scheduled backup snapshot will be added.