The Folder Is the Agent

Next week, we’ll be publishing a reflection from Cora general manager Kieran Klaassen on how human builders can keep compounding—rather than switching off—once Compound Engineering removes them as the production bottleneck. In anticipation, we’re republishing his April piece on the folder-as-agent approach that let him orchestrate 44 specialized agents sustainably. Read the full compound engineering guide and install the plugin.—Kaushik Viswanath

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I spent three months trying to make agent swarms work.

The idea of multiplying myself by coordinating multiple agents at the same time was a compelling pitch as the sole engineer building Every’s AI email assistant, Cora. If I could summon a fleet of AI agents, let them coordinate, and watch them produce work no single agent could match, it would relieve some of my overwhelm.

I tried everything to make it work—Claude Code teams, agents dispatching tasks to other agents, orchestration setups where a lead agent managed a pool of workers. Many iterations, many burned tokens.