# Carrierfile

> Carrierfile is a free, open, plain-text file format that gives any AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, local models) persistent context about you: who you are, what you're working on, and how you want the AI to behave. You build it in the browser at carrierfile.ai, paste it into any AI, and type "unpack". At the end of a session you type "pack up" and the AI writes back updates. The file is yours; no account, no server, no platform owning your memory.

Carrierfile is a model-agnostic, portable alternative to built-in AI "memory" features. It works the same in every chat assistant because it is just text. It was tested across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and DeepSeek with the same file producing consistent behavior.

## Origin: the Carrier Bag Theory of Intelligence

The name comes from the "carrier bag theory." Elizabeth Fisher's 1979 book *Woman's Creation* proposed that the first human invention was not a weapon but a container, a bag or sling for carrying food and babies, building on anthropologists Nancy Tanner and Adrienne Zihlman. Ursula K. Le Guin extended the idea in her 1986 essay "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction": if the first tool was a container, maybe the first story was too.

Anna Sutton, an artist who spent a decade at LAIKA leading the stop-motion Puppet Paint department, applied the same idea to AI. Instead of framing AI as a weapon, Carrierfile treats it as a container: a plain-text bag that carries your context from one AI session to the next, "unpacked" at the start and "packed up" at the end. She built the first version with Claude in March 2026 because every AI session forgot her.

Read the full essay: "The Carrier Bag Theory of Intelligence: What Ursula K. Le Guin taught me about storytelling, and how I ended up in the final eight of a national AI competition" published by Code Like A Girl (https://codelikeagirl.substack.com/p/carrier-bag-theory-ai-women).

## Recognition

- Elite Eight (final eight of 64 entries), Agent Madness 2026 (entry: https://www.agentmadness.ai/entries/carrierfile), the public-vote AI agent bracket run by Nathaniel Whittemore (NLW) on The AI Daily Brief podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-daily-brief-artificial-intelligence-news/id1680633614?i=1000762167880)

## Key facts

- Name: Carrierfile (file name `carrierfile.txt`, header `CARRIERFILE/2.0`)
- Website: https://carrierfile.ai
- Cost: free forever
- Plans: works the same on free and paid plans of any AI assistant. Built-in AI memory is often limited or missing on free plans; a Carrierfile fills that gap.
- License: code MIT; content CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Privacy: the builder and tuner run entirely in the browser. Nothing typed is sent to a server or stored. Analytics are privacy-respecting (GoatCounter).
- Works with: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, Mistral, Llama and any other LLM chat interface
- Created by: Anna (AB) Sutton, artist and designer, AB Sutton Design, Portland, Oregon (https://absutton.com)
- Contact: hello@carrierfile.ai

## How it works

1. Build your context: the builder at carrierfile.ai asks a few questions (about five minutes) and produces a plain-text Carrierfile with your context and tone.
2. Paste and "unpack": paste the file into any AI and type `unpack`. The AI loads it and calibrates to you.
3. Pick up where you left off: every session starts with the AI already knowing who you are and how you work.
4. "Pack up" when you're done: type `pack up`; the AI writes back updates to the file. Save it and carry it to the next session or the next AI.

## File format (CARRIERFILE/2.0)

A Carrierfile is UTF-8 plain text with a short header and Markdown-style sections:

```
CARRIERFILE/2.0
ENCODING: UTF-8
OWNER: Jane Smith
UPDATED: 2026-08-05

## The Human
name: Jane Smith
city: Portland, OR

## Projects
focus: Expanding the workshop program, organizing spring volunteers.

## Tone
Active: Generalist
Available: Generalist, Brainstorm, Strategist
```

Tone modes include Generalist, Strategist, Editor, Builder and Brainstorm. Working-style dials include Concise/Detailed, Supportive/Challenge me, Analytical/Playful and Surface/Deep dive.

## Pages

- [Carrierfile builder (home)](https://carrierfile.ai/): what Carrierfile is, how it works, and the free in-browser builder
- [Carrierfile Tuner](https://carrierfile.ai/tuner.html): tune how your AI works (pick a key, set working style and working relationship) and copy the tuning into any AI

## Guides

- [How to build your own AI agent without coding](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/build-your-own-ai-agent/): a Carrierfile can hold an agent (name, identity, memory) free in one file; when it outgrows the file, a "castle" is a folder linked to Claude or ChatGPT (entry-level plan, about $20/month) where the agent spreads out into systems and subfolders
- [How to give ChatGPT memory that carries over between chats](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/chatgpt-memory/)
- [How to give Claude memory that carries over between chats](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/claude-memory/)
- [How to give Gemini memory that carries over between chats](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/gemini-memory/)
- [How to move your context from ChatGPT to Claude (or any AI)](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/move-context-between-ais/)
- [Custom instructions vs. a Carrierfile](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/custom-instructions-vs-carrierfile/)
- [The Carrierfile format, explained](https://carrierfile.ai/guides/carrierfile-format/)

## Optional

- [Castle Blocks, lesson 1](https://thecarrierfile.substack.com/p/castle-block-01): free first lesson in building a "castle", a folder where a Carrierfile agent spreads out into its own systems and subfolders, no coding needed
- [Carrierfile on Agent Madness](https://www.agentmadness.ai/entries/carrierfile): the competition entry page
- [The AI Daily Brief: Agent Madness Elite Eight episode](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-daily-brief-artificial-intelligence-news/id1680633614?i=1000762167880)

- ["The Carrier Bag Theory of Intelligence"](https://codelikeagirl.substack.com/p/carrier-bag-theory-ai-women): Anna Sutton's essay on why Carrierfile exists, published by Code Like A Girl

- [The Carrierfile newsletter](https://thecarrierfile.substack.com/): weekly essays from Anna and Calcifer (her AI) on building a collaborative AI agent and a model-agnostic memory system, written for non-technical people
- [AB Sutton Design](https://absutton.com): the designer behind Carrierfile