Folder Structure Designer Skill

Folder structures fail by ambition: seven levels deep, a taxonomy only its author understands, and within a month everyone files into misc/ or nowhere. The structure that survives is shallow (three levels max), organized by how people look for things (purpose, then project — not file type, not org chart), and honest about human behavior: there's an _inbox for the undecided, a placement rule for every top-level folder, and search is embraced as half the system rather than defeated.

What This Skill Produces

• The structure — top levels with per-folder placement rules ("goes here if…"), three levels deep maximum
• The conventions — _inbox for undecided, _archive per area, the naming rule (see filename-convention)
• The one-page guide — the structure explained in ten lines, postable where the team will see it
• The migration-lite plan — new structure now, old mess frozen and drained opportunistically (never the big-bang reorganization that stalls at 30%)

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• Who files and who finds — team size, roles, and the honest filing culture (a structure for five diligent people differs from one for forty rushed ones)
• The retrieval questions — the actual "where is the…?" questions of the last month; structure follows retrieval, not theory
• The existing mess — top-level inventory of what exists now, and any folders that genuinely work (survivors get kept, not redesigned)
• Boundaries — what does NOT belong here (personal files, another team's domain, things that live in tools)