Bootloader & assistant setup

STAN’s workflow depends on an assistant being able to read your attached archive.tar and load the project’s system prompt from inside it:

• <stanPath>/system/stan.system.md

Most chat clients do not automatically open a tar archive and locate that file. The “bootloader” is a small system prompt that performs that intake step.

Related guides:

• Getting Started
• The STAN Loop
• Archives & Snapshots
• STAN assistant guide — stan-cli

What the bootloader does

At the start of each chat turn (or when you attach new artifacts), the bootloader:

1. Locates the newest attached archive.tar (or archive.diff.tar when appropriate).
2. Enumerates its contents and finds <stanPath>/system/stan.system.md:
   • Prefer stanPath from stan.config.* when present.
   • Otherwise fall back to common defaults like .stan.
3. Loads stan.system.md and uses it as the governing system prompt for the rest of the turn.

This is what makes STAN “reproducible in chat”: the assistant is constrained to the exact files you shipped in the archive.

Recommended setup (TypingMind)

The simplest path is to use a preconfigured STAN agent in a client that supports long, stable system prompts.

In that setup:

• The bootloader is already installed in the agent.
• You attach .stan/output/archive.tar (and optionally archive.diff.tar).
• The assistant loads .stan/system/stan.system.md automatically.

See Getting Started for the recommended flow.

Other chat clients (what you need to ensure)

If you use a different client, you need both:

• A system prompt that contains the bootloader content, and
• The archive attachment that contains <stanPath>/system/stan.system.md.

If your assistant says the system prompt is missing, the fix is almost always:

• Re-run stan run and attach the resulting .stan/output/archive.tar, or
• Attach <stanPath>/system/stan.system.md directly as a raw file named stan.system.md.

Practical tips

• Start each new thread with a full archive.tar (not only archive.diff.tar).
• In subsequent turns within the same thread, attach only archive.diff.tar unless you need a full reset.
• If you change stanPath, re-run stan init and then stan run so the archive contains the new workspace layout.

Related concepts

• Archives & Snapshots explains what goes into archive.tar and how diffs are computed.
• Patch Workflow & Diagnostics describes how to apply assistant-generated diffs safely and what to do when a patch fails.