Ryan “RyMac” McKinney · USMC · 21 August 2026 · 3 minute read
I cannot write a line of code. I could not in 2006 and I cannot now. Every business I run was built by telling an AI what I wanted, and the reason that works is not talent. It is that the files are arranged so it knows where it is. Here is the ICM folder system with every piece of technical language taken out.
You will meet 4 pieces of language on your way into this. Here is each one, and none of them are as serious as they sound. If you want the fuller version afterwards, it lives in interpretable context methodology.
A markdown file. A text file. The ending is .md instead of .txt, and a hash mark makes a heading. That is the format. You already know how to make one.
A context window. How much the AI can hold in front of it at once. Think desk, not brain. The desk picture is worth 5 minutes because everything else follows from it.
An agent. An AI that can do things rather than only talk about them. That is the entire difference. When one keeps losing the thread, the cause is almost never the agent.
A repository, orchestration, a framework. You will see these and you can walk past all 3. They are ways of arranging software. You are arranging folders.
A folder with 2 notes in it and some folders underneath.
The first note is a map that says "read the second note before you do anything." The second note says what you are working on. The folders hold the work. That is it, and I mean that literally rather than as an encouragement.
You do not need a terminal. Make the folders however you normally make folders.
You do not need to install anything. There is nothing to log into, and the method is free and open under a license that lets you use it commercially.
You do not need the paid plan yet. This is the one that costs people money for no reason. I upgraded within about 10 minutes of signing up and my bill hit $247.84 in 50 days, and I put the receipts on screen in Claude free vs pro. Start free.
1. Make a folder somewhere you already look every day. Not somewhere tidy. Somewhere you go.
2. Make a text file in it called Context.md. Write 4 headings: what I am working on, what is decided, where the files are, what is next.
3. Fill them in. Badly is fine. Your own words are better than good words.
4. Make a second file called CLAUDE.md. Write: read Context.md before you do anything.
5. Open your AI in that folder and tell it to read the map and do what it says.
The named version of all 4 folders is in the ICM folder structure when you are ready for it.
Not on day 1. On about day 4, you will notice you did not have to explain something.
That is the entire promise and I am not going to inflate it. The morning re-explaining stops. If it has not stopped after a week, the desk file is not being read.
2006, a secondhand tower, dial-up, and a typo in the headline every single time. I have written that out in the broke Marine post, and the point of it is that the system never changed. Text files in folders then, text files in folders now.
The method has a name and a paper on it these days, taught by Jake Van Clief at Clief Notes, and that is an affiliate link. The thing underneath the name is still just files, and it is still free.
The kit is 6 files. It takes 20 minutes. A start page. A map. A desk file. The folder skeleton. A setup sheet. A list of what to cancel. No card. No call. No course to buy.
Send me the folder system