https://nika.sh/blog Long-form pedagogy on Intent as Code: why useful AI work belongs in a file, why the language locks at four verbs, and what local-first actually buys you. en https://nika.sh/blog/prompts-are-code https://nika.sh/blog/prompts-are-code Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Language Prompt versioning without a platform: the prompt lives in the workflow file, so git diffs it, a PR reviews it, git reverts it — and the engine itself names an edited prompt when two runs diverge. https://nika.sh/blog/injection-goes-nowhere https://nika.sh/blog/injection-goes-nowhere Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Security AI agent security without a runtime guard: the plan is authored before the model runs, so a hostile note becomes data, never a new action — and the boundary is checked before a token is spent. https://nika.sh/blog/the-run-becomes-evidence https://nika.sh/blog/the-run-becomes-evidence Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine Every journal line now carries a hash chain — verify names the first broken link, reproduce classifies every task, and the journal attests which engine wrote it. Trust, but verify. Then verify. https://nika.sh/blog/time-travel-for-real https://nika.sh/blog/time-travel-for-real Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine Every debugger replays the past by re-running it. Nika's past is a file — so stepping backward is free, breakpoints live in your YAML, and F5 debugs a run that already happened. https://nika.sh/blog/the-editor-tells-the-truth https://nika.sh/blog/the-editor-tells-the-truth Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine A green badge is a claim. We audited the editor extension against the engine the way you'd audit a client against a server — and found the badge lying. Here is the contract that keeps it honest now. https://nika.sh/blog/the-credentials-your-pipeline-breaks https://nika.sh/blog/the-credentials-your-pipeline-breaks Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Security OpenAI and Google sign the images their APIs return. Almost every pipeline that touches those files silently converts the signature into evidence of tampering — including, until this week, ours. https://nika.sh/blog/one-wire-five-servers https://nika.sh/blog/one-wire-five-servers Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sovereignty The self-hosted media world quietly standardized on OpenAI's wire shapes. That accident of history is the best sovereignty news in years — and Nika's media builtins are built on it. https://nika.sh/blog/media-are-workflow-citizens https://nika.sh/blog/media-are-workflow-citizens Mon, 06 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine Images and speech now render inside workflows under the same discipline as everything else: permit-gated saves, sha256 provenance, honest warnings, real cost on the ledger — and the sovereign path first. https://nika.sh/blog/the-trace-you-can-replay https://nika.sh/blog/the-trace-you-can-replay Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine Every run leaves a flight recorder: a deterministic AI audit trail you can replay like a film, never re-execute by accident. https://nika.sh/blog/the-secrets-line https://nika.sh/blog/the-secrets-line Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Security Information-flow, audited before it flows: how the checker proves a secret cannot leak into a prompt, a file, or a host. https://nika.sh/blog/the-cost-line https://nika.sh/blog/the-cost-line Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine The audit prices every token before it is spent: ceilings on generations, budgets on loops, and a $0.00 that means it. https://nika.sh/blog/anatomy-of-a-verb https://nika.sh/blog/anatomy-of-a-verb Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Language infer, exec, invoke, agent: what makes the four verbs genuinely different execution models, in the engine's own verdicts. https://nika.sh/blog/own-your-stack https://nika.sh/blog/own-your-stack Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sovereignty One Rust binary, your models, your files. Run LLMs locally and see what local-first actually buys you. https://nika.sh/blog/dag-for-free https://nika.sh/blog/dag-for-free Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Engine depends_on is all you write. The orchestration falls out of the graph: parallel waves, drawn before anything runs. https://nika.sh/blog/four-verbs https://nika.sh/blog/four-verbs Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Language A verb is a distinct execution model, not a feature. Why the language locks at four, forever. https://nika.sh/blog/intent-as-code https://nika.sh/blog/intent-as-code Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Manifesto Chats evaporate, files compound. The case for writing AI work down as source you own: your best prompts, versioned like code. https://nika.sh/blog/blast-radius-in-the-file https://nika.sh/blog/blast-radius-in-the-file Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Security permits: is the whole list, guardrails an agent can't talk past. Everything not on it is denied before it runs, with a named error. https://nika.sh/blog/standard-library-not-plugin-store https://nika.sh/blog/standard-library-not-plugin-store Thu, 14 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Language 25 builtins in the binary, allow-listed, nothing to install. The library grows, the language holds still. https://nika.sh/blog/open-spec-copyleft-engine https://nika.sh/blog/open-spec-copyleft-engine Fri, 01 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sovereignty Two licenses, one argument: the file must outlive every vendor, including us. https://nika.sh/blog/starting-over-on-purpose https://nika.sh/blog/starting-over-on-purpose Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Origins We had a working prototype. We rebuilt from scratch anyway: craft, not extraction, one gate at a time. https://nika.sh/blog/naming-the-drum https://nika.sh/blog/naming-the-drum Sat, 21 Mar 2026 09:00:00 GMT Origins Why a workflow engine carries the name of a liberation god, and a butterfly on every commit. https://nika.sh/blog/the-note-that-started-it https://nika.sh/blog/the-note-that-started-it Fri, 17 Oct 2025 09:00:00 GMT Origins Before the spec, before the name, there was one evening note: the best AI work of the month had just disappeared.