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title FAQ

FAQ

Related guides:

Do I need to re-upload the full archive every time?

Typically no. Upload the full archive.tar once at the start of a chat thread, then attach the smaller archive.diff.tar for subsequent turns. If you exhaust your context window, start a fresh chat, ask for a handoff in the old one, and paste that into the new chat along with the latest full archive.

What if my repo contains binaries or large files?

STAN automatically excludes binary files from archives and prints a warning to the console. It also flags very large text files (by size or line count). You can add glob patterns to the excludes array in your stan.config.yml to ignore specific large files or directories you don't want included.

Why does STAN use plain unified diffs?

They are a portable, human-readable, and universally supported format for representing code changes. This makes them ideal for an AI-assisted workflow because they are auditable and tool-friendly. STAN’s FEEDBACK handshake provides a robust mechanism for automatically correcting patches that fail to apply.

Why does stan patch reject multi-file diffs?

stan patch enforces one target file per patch payload. This keeps patches auditable, reduces failure surface area, and makes retries (diagnostics → corrected patch) deterministic. For multi-file changes, apply multiple patches (one per file).

See: Patch Workflow & Diagnostics

What is stanPath?

stanPath is the name of the STAN workspace directory inside your repo (default .stan). It contains:

  • system/ prompts and metadata
  • output/ script outputs and archives
  • diff/ snapshot baselines and history
  • patch/ patch workspace

See: Stan Configuration

What if I have a legacy (non-namespaced) config?

Run:

stan init

It migrates legacy root keys into stan-core and stan-cli, writes a .bak, and preserves YAML vs JSON.

See: Migration — Namespaced Configuration

What is the bootloader and why do I need it?

Most chat clients don’t automatically “open” your tar archive and read .stan/system/stan.system.md. The bootloader is the system prompt that performs that archive intake step.

See: Bootloader & Assistant Setup

Can I run STAN in CI?

Yes. The CLI is designed to be deterministic and scriptable. You can run stan run in a CI job to generate archives and text outputs, then upload them as build artifacts or use them in subsequent pipeline steps, such as automated documentation publishing or quality checks.

Is there a library API?

While STAN is packaged as an npm module with exports, its primary and supported interface is the CLI. For deep integration, you can consult the API reference on the docs site.