More detail: Check Archie's design, change it, and approve it

This page goes with the lesson "Check Archie's design, change it, and approve it" (course/workforce/week3/lessons/anw-w3-l06.md). You don't need it to finish the lesson. Read a section when the lesson links to it.

What the parts look like

Here is the newsletter example from last lesson, shortened. Yours has the same sections, about your work.

The status line on your card reads a little longer than "Ready". The first word is the one that matters: "Draft" or "Ready".

And two lines from the check file beside it:

Who checked it. The card's "Checked by" line names the check. "Independent check" means the same kind of model, with a clean slate. "Second-model review" means a different model family. Either way, it reads the PRD assuming it is wrong, and fixes nothing.

The drawing in section 3.3. Section 3 also holds the flow as a drawing. Depending on your app, it shows as a picture or as lines of text starting with flowchart. Either is fine: the words in section 3.1 say the same thing.

The rest of the PRD. The other sections are there for Gigawatt, for the check, and for anyone who wants the detail. You can read them, but you don't need to judge them.

What Archie does with your changes

Questions first. Archie may ask about a change before it writes, one question at a time, or play your changes back and ask what it missed. If a change needs an outside fact you don't have, "go research it" is still a good answer: Archie sends the question to the External Researcher (Scratch).

A new check, every version. A new version gets its own check before Archie asks for your yes. So beside prd-v2.md you'll find checker-v2.md, and Archie shows you up to five "could not verify" lines from it.

Files, not messages. Your thread with Archie and your thread with Gigawatt never message each other. They pass files in your design folder. That's why the pointer line only has to name the folder.

What your yes covers

How your yes is saved. When you say yes, Archie has a fresh copy of Gigawatt run a small script. The script saves your exact words, the version they cover (the newest one with a check beside it), and which files that version is, in approval.json in your design folder. The saved line reads like "approved prd-v2 on the owner's yes: 'looks good'". Nobody types that file by hand, and you never type a version or a long code. The script also saves a list of what the team may do in that version: its tools, where it may write, what it may send or post, which agents are borrowed, and the test cases. That list is how drift is judged later.

The newest checked version. Your yes covers the PRD and the agent files of that one version. If you prefer an older version, ask Archie to write it again as the next version, then say yes to that.

Your files. Your yes also approves the files your PRD lists in section 5, "The owner's files for this team", for the team's department. Each line names one file from your library, its department and your reason. Before your team's first job, your Chief of Staff has the Knowledge Librarian (Sallee) file each one as a source card, then adds the lines to your approved sources, exactly as the PRD gives them. One yes covers them all. To change a line, send Archie the change before you say yes.

A new yes replaces the old one. If you change something after you approve, Archie writes a new version, has it checked, and asks again. Your earlier approval is kept beside the new one, and the new one takes its place.

The pre-authorization line. At your yes, Archie offers one line, once: "If every case passes, install it; only stop me for a Needs-you item." Say it in your own words only if you want the install to go ahead next lesson without a second yes. It is saved with the date beside your yes. Gigawatt honors it only when every check it reads is clean: the files render and verify, no blocking finding is open, and every rehearsed case passed. If any of those fails, it waits for your yes exactly as if you had said nothing. A plain "yes" is never read as a pre-authorization.

Gigawatt checks before it builds, and again before it installs. Next lesson, Gigawatt compares your approval with the files before it builds anything, and again just before it installs. An edit to the version you approved is tampering, and it stops. A newer version written after your yes is drift, and Gigawatt compares what the team may do in the two: unchanged, it goes on and notes the drift in the install report; changed (a tool, a write path, sending or posting, a borrowed agent, a case), it stops, names the change, and asks for a fresh yes to the new version. This can happen during the build, too: Gigawatt may find something the design didn't foresee, and Archie answers with a new version. "The design still holds" is also a fine answer, and then your yes stands.

The pointer line in Codex. In Codex, Archie gives you the line in a form Codex can pass on. It starts "Ask the Operator (Gigawatt) to build the team from my approved design", followed by your folder.

Two doors. Your yes today approves the design. Nothing is installed until the second door, the install, in the next lesson: your yes to Gigawatt, or the pre-authorization you gave today when every case passes. Between the two doors your agents stop only for the smoke alarm: money, sending anything outside, deleting, posting publicly, and account authority. Each of those waits on your Needs-you list with the work saved up to that point, and everything else keeps going.