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•Tiago Duarte

Why I Built an OS for Agents: Solving "Context Collapse" in AI Coding

Building Agentic OS

The "Blank Page" Paralysis

We are entering an era where AI agents can write code faster than humans can review it. But if you have used GitHub Copilot Workspace, Cursor, or Windsurf for more than 10 minutes, you have hit the wall: Context Collapse.

It usually happens like this:

  1. Step 1: You ask for a feature. The AI writes perfect code.
  2. Step 5: You ask for a tweak. The AI rewrites the file.
  3. Step 10: You realize the AI has hallucinated a new architecture, ignored your previous constraints, and broken the build.

The problem isn't the AI's intelligence. It's the Governance.

Spec Driven Development (SDD)

I have been building proprietary engines behind corporate firewalls since 2004. Last week, I decided to start building in public.

When I started working with Agentic AI, I realized that Agile (move fast, break things) is dangerous when your "junior developer" can type 4,000 words per minute.

We need Spec Driven Development (SDD).

I built agentic-os-tool as a CLI to enforce a "Flow of Truth" that prevents agents from drifting.

The Flow of Truth

It enforces a strict hierarchy of documents before a single line of code is written:

  1. PRD (Product Requirements Document): The "Why" and "What". The Agent must interview you until this is solid.
  2. SPEC (Implementation Plan): The "How". The Blueprint. The Agent must read the PRD and seek approval for the architecture.
  3. TASKS (Checklist): The "When". Atomic units of work.
  4. CODE: The output.

If you skip to Code, you fail.

Why Open Source?

I originally built this for my own consulting work to keep my AI sessions on track. But I realized that "how to talk to Agents" is the new "Prompt Engineering."

We need a standard for Agentic Governance.

This tool is simple. It's a CLI that generates the folder structures and system prompts (.agent/workflows) to make your AI (whether it's inside Cursor, Windsurf, or a custom agent) behave like a Senior Engineer, not an enthusiastic Junior.

Try it out

I released it on GitHub today:
github.com/tiagofoil/agentic-os-tool

It’s open source. It’s the OS I wish I had when I started.
Let’s build something intelligent.