A skill is still a prompt: why I moved project authority outside the coding agent

Description and use

Separating authority from the coding agent with arka.norn reduced drift and improved project governance, enabling safe, auditable changes.

Problem

Coding agents drifted when all authority was inside the model, leading to architecture drift, rule forgetting, and misinterpretation of simple instructions.

Outcome

Separating authority from the model reduced drift, improved auditability, and enabled reliable recovery of project state across sessions.

Workflow

• 1. Define project scope and audit plan via Norn UI.
• 2. Agent collects evidence only after human approval.
• 3. Agent proposes changes; Norn checks scope and mechanical evidence.
• 4. If authorized, Norn commits changes to repository.
• 5. System logs and maintains durable project state for recovery.

Evidence

The agent can know that a document exists without actually reading it.

Source

Norn keeps the governed project state locally and exposes that same state through a local Web cockpit, TUI and CLI.

Source