An open standard for reusable thinking systems.
Frameworks currently live trapped inside specific AI conversations. Your systematic thinking, the methodologies, decision trees, and reusable mental models you've built through thousands of exchanges, stays locked to whichever platform hosted the conversation.
There's no portable format. No interoperability. No way to move your intelligence between tools, share it with teammates, or version it like code.
Every time you switch AI systems, you start over. Every time a company changes their terms, your thinking goes with them. Every team reinvents the same frameworks because nobody can share them in a structured way.
This is the missing standard.
A .framework.json file is a portable, self-contained description of a single reusable framework, a systematic thinking tool that can be loaded into any AI system, shared across teams, or versioned like code.
The format is designed so that:
- Any tool can read a framework without additional context.
- Relationships between frameworks are explicit and graph-traversable.
- A human can open the file in any editor and understand it.
- Frameworks survive round-tripping between systems with no structural loss.
This spec is derived from a library of 611 frameworks built over two years. It formalizes what was already working.
SPECIFICATION.md, the full format specexamples/, four example frameworks showing the format in practicetools/, Python CLI for ingesting, searching, exporting, and graphing a framework library (standard library only, no dependencies)graph.html, visual explorer for navigating framework relationshipsconversation-miner.html, drop a Claude export archive, pick keywords, get a condensed file you can drop into a fresh project's knowledge base. Browser-only, no server.
| File | What it shows |
|---|---|
minimal-example.framework.json |
Smallest valid file. Every required field at its minimum form. |
full-example.framework.json |
Every optional block. FILM-007 in canonical form. |
render-004-example.framework.json |
Production framework. Audio-visual video production pipeline. |
scope-community-example.framework.json |
Collaboration framework. AI partnership calibration. |
meme-to-model-example.framework.json |
Playful framework. Turn any viral meme into a reusable mental model. Shows the format handles fun subjects, not just serious ones. |
# Ingest a folder of framework files into SQLite
python3 tools/ingest.py --source ./examples --db library.db
# Search the library
python3 tools/search.py --db library.db --text "production"
# Export back to canonical .framework.json files
python3 tools/export.py --db library.db --out ./exported
# Generate relationship graph JSON
python3 tools/graph.py --db library.db --out graph.json
# Open visual graph explorer
open graph.htmlEvery tool in this repo is deliberately minimal, with an extension-paths list inside it that doubles as a pull-request menu. Pick one and send it back. Current upgrade paths worth building:
- Semantic search over conversation exports (embeddings, not just keywords).
- LLM-scored quality ranking for mined excerpts.
- ChatGPT archive support for the conversation miner (different JSON shape, same drop zone).
- Expanded relationship enrichment for the canonical library.
- Direct Claude Projects API integration.
- Framework submission process and community library.
This is early infrastructure and the standard will evolve through real-world use. Open a PR, file an issue, or fork and run with it.
- Framework Builder, open source skill file for building frameworks using this format.
- whatisaframework.com, methodology and educational content explaining framework thinking.
- howtoframework.com, practical guidance on building your own frameworks.
Built by Mike Goetz. Derived from two years of systematic framework development and the SIOS Strategic Intelligence Operating System project.
MIT. The spec, tools, and examples are free to use, modify, and distribute.