View source for The Principia Machina/GTP/Guide/1 Installing and verifying an instruction set

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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Guide 1: Installing and verifying an instruction set}}
''The operator's guide, page 1 of 4. It assumes [[The Principia Machina/GTP/Walk/1 What the orders are, and who writes them|the walk through]]. Each page states its purpose and scope, gives the procedure, works one example, and links what governs it. The worked examples are drawn from the Claude instance; the rules they follow are [[The Principia Machina/GTP|GTP]]'s, which governs wherever this guide and it differ.''

== Purpose ==
Put a new or revised instruction artifact into force, and then confirm that the thing in force is the thing you meant.

== Scope ==
The act that puts an artifact into force, the compatibility check that precedes it, and the audit that confirms the result afterwards. Not covered: writing or revising an artifact, which is the revision-control procedure; publishing one to this wiki, which is a separate job and is the reason these pages exist.

== Procedure ==
# Get the artifact as a whole file, not as text pasted into a message. A long payload can be cut short in transit, and a message gives you no way to tell.
# Look at the last lines. Every artifact of this family ends with a fixed closing line naming itself and its version. If that line is missing, what you have is truncated. Do not install it, do not repair it by hand, and get the file again.
# Read the header. It should declare the artifact's own version, the range of profile versions it expects, and the sections of other documents it leans on. A missing declaration is a defect in the artifact, not a detail to overlook.
# Compare the declared range against the profile version actually in force right now. If the profile is outside that range, stop. Installing anyway produces an artifact that runs and is quietly wrong, which is the failure this step exists to prevent.
# Put the file where it takes effect: the project instructions for a project artifact, the account preferences for the profile.
# Say plainly, in the conversation, that it is installed. Until you do, nothing in it is in force. Uploading it, pasting it or calling it ready are not the same act, and the agent should not treat them as if they were.
# Run the environment audit. It prints one row per artifact: what it is, which release, what it asks of the profile, whether it is live. Then what can be invoked. Read that against what you expected.
# Check the audit for absences as well as presences. A procedure the set routes to but which did not load must appear as missing. If it is simply not listed, the audit is not telling you the truth and that is worth chasing before you work.

== Worked example ==
The project instruction set, version 0.2.0, was installed on 16 September 2026. The file carried its closing line, so nothing had been cut. Its header asked for a profile in the range from 7.0.0 up to but not including 8.0.0, and the profile in force was 7.0.1, which falls inside it. It was placed in the project instructions and declared installed in the conversation that day. The audit afterwards listed it at 0.2.0 alongside five procedures at their own versions, which is what the branch working from it later relied on. The same steps have put every later version into force; version 0.14.0 was stated installed on 28 September 2026.

Governing sections, in the Claude instance: ARTIFACT COMPATIBILITY, VERSION SEMANTICS, CONVENTIONS, FRONT-END CONTRACT.

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Guide contents: [[The Principia Machina/GTP/Contents|the section contents]]. Previous: [[The Principia Machina/GTP/Walk/6 Saying what the work is for|the last page of the walk through]]. Next: [[The Principia Machina/GTP/Guide/2 Running a decision pause|Running a decision pause]].

[[Category:The Principia Machina]]