The present invention provides a novel file management approach. The systems and methods comprise a schema-based file management technique that can be integrated within an operating system to provide application developers an efficient and powerful develop utility to build applications. In addition, the system and methods provide for applications that can be employed uniformly across disparate data (e.g., audio and video data) within the operating environment. The schema can include a base schema that is related to known types of data and derived schema that extend the base schema with respect to one or more characteristics of the data. The schema can be employed to generate APIs that can be employed by users and/or applications to exchange information with a file system. In addition, the systems and methods can include configurable intelligence that can be utilized perform actions and/or make decisions, which can automate processes and/or facilitate data storage and/or management.