What is norns CLAUDE.md?

A project guide for Norns, an open-source system that runs and tracks tasks handled by software agents. It documents the Elixir technology stack, commands, and code layout.

Understanding and changing the Norns codebase, running its tests, applying database migrations, and locating its main components.

It gives coding agents the project context needed to work consistently, including how to run tests and database migrations in Docker.

How nornscode/norns configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to nornscode/norns. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nornscode/norns/main/CLAUDE.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nornscode/norns

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/nornscode/norns/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 1,356 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 1,356 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.01356	$0.01356
Opus 5.5	$0.00542	$0.00542
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00271	$0.00271
Haiku 4.5	$0.00136	$0.00136

Measured 22d ago against content hash ddcc7a886ff3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

norns CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 22d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to norns AGENTS.md — 94 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

CLAUDE.md · 102 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 102 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Norns

Project Overview

Open-source (MIT) durable agent runtime on BEAM. The orchestrator is a pure state machine — it dispatches tasks to workers and persists events, but never executes LLM calls or tools directly.

Tech Stack

Language: Elixir on BEAM/OTP
Web Framework: Phoenix (REST + Channels + LiveView)
Database: PostgreSQL via Ecto
Background Jobs: Oban
Dev Environment: Docker Compose (all mix commands run in containers)
License: MIT

Running Commands

docker compose run --rm -e POSTGRES_HOST=db app mix test
docker compose run --rm -e POSTGRES_HOST=db app mix ecto.migrate
docker compose run --rm -e MIX_ENV=test -e POSTGRES_HOST=db app mix test

Project Structure

lib/norns/
  tenants/          — Tenant schema + context (multi-tenancy)
  agents/           — Agent, AgentDef, Process (state machine), Replay (rebuild from the log), Messages, Registry
  conversations/    — Conversation schema + context (persistent chat history)
  runs/             — Run + RunEvent schemas, Runs context (event log)
  runtime/          — Event contracts, error taxonomy, retry policy
  gards/            — Gard + GardPort schemas; Gards context (worker affinity)
  hooks/            — Hook schema, Signature verification; Hooks context (webhook ingress)
  triggers/         — Trigger schema + context (cron schedules that start runs)
  workers/          — WorkerRegistry, TaskQueue, ResumeAgents, TriggerScheduler, ServerlessWorker(s) + Wake (wake-on-demand workers)
  tools/            — Tool struct (no handler), Builtins, Catalog, Idempotency

lib/norns_web/
  endpoint.ex       — Phoenix endpoint (REST + WebSocket + LiveView)
  router.ex         — API routes (authed + public hook ingest) + LiveView routes
  plugs/            — Auth (API bearer token), SessionAuth (browser cookies)
  cache_body_reader.ex — caches raw request body for hook signature verification
  controllers/      — Agent, Run, Conversation, Trigger, Hook, HookIngest, Gard, Tool, Worker, ServerlessWorker, Telemetry
  channels/         — AgentSocket/Channel (streaming), WorkerSocket/Channel (task dispatch)
  live/             — AgentsLive, AgentLive, RunLive, ToolsLive, GardsLive, TelemetryLive, SetupLive
  components/       — Layouts (root + app)
  json.ex           — Serialization helpers

Read the full file on GitHub · 102 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

22d ago Changed · +1 lines · +54 tokens per session ddcc7a886ff3
1mo ago Changed · -2 lines · -15 tokens per session 6dbf1263f8ab
2mo ago First seen · 103 lines · 1,317 tokens per session scan A 787579f62f3c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

norns CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository nornscode/norns (12 stars, last pushed 10d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,356 tokens to every session, about $0.0054 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to norns AGENTS.md, differing in 94 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Orchestration agents ai elixir harness runtime

norns CLAUDE.md next to 6 instructions from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
norns CLAUDE.mdnornscode/norns	Instructions file	12	10d ago	MIT	A	1,356	Claude Code
vscode buildNext.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	9,719	GitHub Copilot
next.js AGENTS.mdvercel/next.js	Instructions file	143k	yesterday	MIT	A	7,461	Codex, OpenCode
langchain AGENTS.mdlangchain-ai/langchain	Instructions file	149k	yesterday	MIT	A	4,680	Codex, OpenCode
vscode oss-third-party-notices.instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	5,516	GitHub Copilot
vscode copilot-instructions.mdmicrosoft/vscode	Instructions file	195k	yesterday	MIT	A	3,093	GitHub Copilot
deepseek-harness AGENTS.mddeepseek-ai/deepseek-harness	Instructions file	274k	2d ago	MIT	A	4,313	Codex, OpenCode

norns: Instructions file for Claude Code