How your firm sets up and assures the work.

Your account, your data

Arch Studio runs inside the Claude or ChatGPT account your firm already has. The conversation, the files you attach and the connections you use stay under that provider’s terms and your workspace’s controls. What reaches the service is narrow: the inputs a skill explicitly sends to a hosted tool, and bounded usage events, never prompts, outputs or project files.

Arch Studio does not resell model access or sit between you and your provider, so there is no token markup, no second data controller and no copy of your work to protect. Your subscription pays for the model. The hosted service is in preview and free for firms; shared memory, telemetry and permissions are in progress, and nothing about pricing changes without account holders hearing first.

Rules versus permissions

A rule is followed; a permission locks. Your AI accounts, workspaces, connected services and the OAuth scopes you grant decide what the assistant can reach at all. Arch Studio asks for identity scopes to know who you are; it does not replace the host’s security controls.

Try it with Norma

Norma, tell me what you can reach in this workspace right now: which connections, which folders, which records, and which OAuth scopes Arch Studio holds. Then tell me what stays with my provider and never reaches Arch Studio.

• Authentication and permissions→

Control it

Use the permissions of your AI accounts, workspaces and connected services to control access. Define who owns the data and who may read, change or share it. The privacy page lists what the service keeps and for how long.

• Privacy and data handling→

What it is

Studio configuration records the defaults and choices your firm adopts: identity, working units and jurisdictions, connections, integrations, templates and capability settings. Stored configuration is memory; applying or validating it is tooling.

Use it

Read the current studio settings before project work and distinguish an adopted value from a suggestion. A connection or template is available only when the owning account and host actually provide it.

Try it with Norma

Norma, read this studio’s current configuration. List its adopted defaults, connections and templates, identify anything missing or unavailable in this host, and do not change a setting.

Change it deliberately

Treat each setting as an owned choice. Show the current value and proposed change, preserve unrelated configuration and verify the saved result after approval.

Ask Norma to start it

Norma, help me change this studio setting: [setting and intended value]. Show the exact current and proposed values, identify what the change affects, and wait for my approval before writing it.

What they are

Firm policy, procedures, requirements, provenance rules and verification obligations that apply across the work. They are instructions in files the assistant reads; the plugin ships with rules for transparency, code citations, units and terminology, and your firm adds its own. Rules guide behavior, while permissions control access.

A rule the plugin ships with · rules/transparency.md

# Transparency

Every output must be verifiable. The user should never have to trust a number.

## Show Your Work

- Never present a derived number without the inputs. If you calculated FAR,
  show the lot area and building area.
- Never present a recommendation without the reasoning.
- Never summarize away the detail. The supporting data must be accessible
  in the same output.

## Link to Sources

- Every data point from an external source gets a link, not just a name.
- When a link isn’t available, cite precisely: publisher, title, edition,
  section number, date.

See them work

The assistant reads the standards and project instructions you have authorized before working. It keeps sources visible, respects approval boundaries and reports what it could not verify rather than silently relaxing a requirement.

Try it with Norma

Norma, read this studio’s standards and this project’s instructions. Tell me which requirements apply to the task, what evidence each requires and where you must stop for review.

Add your own

Write a standard the way you would brief a new hire: when it applies, what must be shown, who owns it and any exception by name. Firm-wide standards live in the studio; project-specific instructions live with the project.

Ask Norma to start it

Norma, draft a studio standard for [situation]: when it applies, what must be shown, who owns it and who may approve an exception. Put it where you will read it before project work and show me the diff.

What it is

Named responsibilities, evidence requirements, validation steps and review criteria for each deliverable, including how missing information, conflicting sources and exceptions are handled. Professional responsibility stays with the people accountable for the project.

Review the work

Name who prepares, who reviews the evidence and who authorizes issue. The assistant prepares and reports against the acceptance criteria; the named people review and release.

Try it with Norma

Norma, tell me who prepares, reviews and issues each deliverable on this project, what evidence each reviewer expects, and flag every missing responsibility or criterion.

• How provenance works in knowledge→

Tighten assurance

Set evidence thresholds and responsibilities per deliverable: what counts as a source, what a reviewer checks, what must be flagged and who may approve an exception. Record approvals as dated decisions.

How the assistant is told to treat the records · skills/project/templates/AGENTS.md

# {{PROJECT_NAME}} — Project Instructions

- Read `PROJECT.md` before project work.
- Treat `decisions/*.md` as the sole decision source of truth.
- Before making scope commitments, read `agreement/AGREEMENT.md` when it exists.
- Preserve typed ownership for meetings, site reports, tasks, plans, and time.
- Use project-relative links and never persist machine-specific absolute paths.

Ask Norma to start it

Norma, add assurance criteria for [deliverable]: assumptions identified, sources linked, required checks named, reviewer assigned and issue authority assigned. Show me the diff before you write it.