FAQ

What people ask before they install.

How much does PRISM reduce token costs?

Up to 70% of context cost on long agent sessions. prism-proxy applies stacked compression — RTK for tool-definition bloat, real WebP@87 vision rendering for long prose, Caveman for the rest — while strictly preserving errors, stack traces, and results. Its markdown audit ranks every tool by context consumption, so you see exactly what to cut.

Is PRISM an agent?

No. PRISM is a harness — the set of tools, prompts, and operational discipline an agent is plugged into. The doctrine rules in agents/rules/ steer any AI coding agent toward disciplined behavior. Independent benchmarks show the same model scoring 77% and 93% on identical tasks depending only on the harness it runs in.

Do I need to install everything?

No — and you probably shouldn't. Every component is independent, so start from your goal and install the minimal set:

• Steering files / git workflow / team dev skills → just prism-harness.
• Route across providers and models, rotate plans, safe keys → prism-route.
• Cut token bills and audit context → prism-proxy.
• Overnight memory / resumable agent → prism-loop.
• Enforce reviews on every MR → prism-sober.
• A lean, fast Hermes/OpenClaw-style chat straight to your models → prism-chat.

Add more later as you need it — nothing requires the full suite. See the decision matrix →

What models does it work with?

Any. Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, OpenCode, Hermes Agent, or your own. The doctrine is model-agnostic; prism-route handles the actual model call, with KDL profiles for OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic providers, plan rotation, and failover tiers.

How does prism-route keep my API keys safe?

Keys live in files under ~/.secrets/ and are loaded only by the selector process. prism-route serve injects the auth header server-side on every request; agents and chat clients never see a key, and nothing is logged unredacted.

What is prism-chat?

The lightweight chat surface: talk to your routed models without an agent. Terminal commands (ask, repl) and a local installable PWA at 127.0.0.1:8789, both riding prism-route serve. Streaming, session usage, markdown export — and no keys in the client. More on the six components →

Can I install only some components?

Yes. Every component is independent. prism-harness is the doctrine + CLI core. The other five are components you pick by what you need:

• prism-route — routing + rotation + auth.
• prism-loop — overnight autonomous work with memory.
• prism-sober — MR-level review steering against your doctrine.
• prism-proxy — loopback auditor + compressor on your model calls.
• prism-chat — direct chat (terminal + PWA) through the gateway.

Is PRISM free?

Yes — LSL-1.0, Libertaria Sovereign License v1.0. File-level copyleft on the doctrine rules, templates, CLI, installer, and container. Touch them, publish your changes back. No copyleft infection for proprietary product code; the CLI sits next to your code, your code is yours.

Why the Debian container for the agent?

The heartbeat mode runs the CRON.md wake loop — the agent needs git, build-essential, apt-get, python3, gnupg to actually pick a slice and do the work. A hardened minimal can't do that. Debian-slim keeps the image small (~80 MB compressed) while giving the agent a full workspace.

Does the identity canon leak to public registries?

No. The canon lives at ~/.prism/identity/ on the operator's machine. The sovereign Forgejo registry hosts only the six @prism/* packages and their metadata. No telemetry, no tracking, no central control.

What happens if I edit SOUL.md?

You tell the agent first. SOUL.md changes only by joint decision. Procedure moves to DOCTRINE.md; cadence lives in the file matching its tempo. If a paragraph has a date or a cadence in it, it belongs elsewhere.

Why "name is the LAST question"?

By the time the human picks a name, the designation, primary purpose, tone, and scope are already in place — the name lands better that way. The questionnaire holds name until the end.

Can the agent run without an identity canon?

Yes, but it's stillborn. The agent has no name, no purpose, no memory, no heartbeat. prism-harness identity init is what brings it to life. How the canon works →

Where does the doctrine come from?

The Mosaic Trust Network team — mosaic-trust-network/agents on dlabs GitLab, authored over 2026-Q2. Adopted under LSL-1.0; mirrored byte-for-byte. The CLI, installer, identity canon, and container are original Virgil / Hermes Agent work, July–August 2026.

Where can I report issues?

git.sovereign-society.org/prism — issue trackers per component repo. No Discord, no Slack — the forge is the surface.