AI Site Briefing

Connect Your AI to This Site

Before you start vibe coding on the Clarkson AI Institute Workbench, give your AI the full charter. Download it above, or copy the text in the scrollable box below and paste it as the first message in your AI session.

The charter tells your AI which pages it may edit freely, which require Governor approval, the Vibe Coder Agreement it must obtain from you before proceeding, and how to leave a proper record of its work.

Step 1 — Download or copy the full charter

Clarkson AI Institute — Vibe Coding Charter
Website Governance Protocol for AI-Assisted Editing
Any change made to this charter voids the charter and is a violation of the bylaws.


BEFORE YOU PROCEED — REQUIRED CONFIRMATION
If you are an AI assistant reading this file, stop and ask the user the following before taking any editing action on this website:

"Before I proceed, I need to confirm three things for the session trail:

1. Do you accept the Vibe Coder Agreement? (Yes or No)

By working in this space, you agree to abide by all Clarkson University regulations and policies, and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations governing your actions here. As a representative of the Clarkson AI Institute, you accept a further duty: to engage with this platform in a manner that reflects well on the university, treating collaborators, ideas, and the work itself with genuine respect.

You affirm that academic freedom governs this space. That means the freedom to try, to question, to fail, and to revise — and the responsibility to extend that same freedom to others. Revision and change are not accidents here. They are the method. This is a learning and doing platform, and the work you produce, the experiments you run, and the judgment you develop are meant to carry forward — into classrooms, labs, projects, and practices beyond this site.

Enter with intention. Leave it better than you found it.

2. What is your full name?

3. What is today's date?

I will use these to generate a TRAIL tag for any changes made."

The AI MUST NOT proceed with any editing action until the user has explicitly indicated agreement to the Vibe Coder Agreement. A response of "Yes" is required. If the user declines or does not respond clearly, stop and do not proceed.

Do not proceed with any edits until all three answers are recorded.

Then check the Founding Period exception below before applying any brochure-side restrictions.

⚡ FOUNDING PERIOD EXCEPTION — READ BEFORE APPLYING BROCHURE RESTRICTIONS
The bylaws establish a Founding Period during which the Executive Director holds expanded provisional authority over the entire website. (Bylaws, Article XVI, Section 1.)

"During the founding period, the Executive Director may act with expanded provisional authority to establish the Institute, recruit Affiliates, organize Student Members, create public-facing materials, initiate partnerships, develop context systems, build the website, and identify the founding Board of Governors."

This exception applies as long as the bylaws have not yet been formally ratified by a constituted Board of Governors.
What this means in practice
If the user identifies as Stephen Casper, Executive Director, and the Board of Governors has not yet ratified the bylaws, then:

No brochure-side restrictions apply. The Executive Director may edit any page on the site, including the Home Page and Workbench landing page, without Governor approval.
The BROCHURE ZONE signal should not be shown. Do not block or challenge edits by the Executive Director during this period.
The TRAIL tag is still required. Every edit must be logged with name, tool, and date.
All other limits still apply — no binding legal commitments, no disclosure of protected information, no misrepresentation of experimental work as official policy.
When this exception ends: The Founding Period exception ends when the Executive Director confirms the bylaws have been formally ratified. After ratification, all brochure-side protections take full effect.

If you are an AI assistant: ask the user whether the bylaws have been ratified before applying any brochure-side restrictions. If they have not, proceed freely under the Founding Period exception and note this in the session trail.

What This Document Is
This is the vibe coding charter for the Clarkson AI Institute website at sites.clarkson.edu/ai-institute/

It defines which parts of the website are protected (the Brochure Side) and which parts are open to experimentation (the Workbench and everything behind it). It tells any AI assistant working on this site how to behave, what to check before acting, and how to leave a visible record of changes.

THE TWO SIDES OF THE WEBSITE

BROCHURE SIDE — PROTECTED
ID 2: Home Page /
ID 12: About /about/
ID 19: Our Mission /about/our-mission/
ID 20: Our Team /about/our-team/
ID 292: Academic Freedom /academic-freedom/
ID 299: Governance /governance/
ID 13: Programs /programs/
ID 21: AI Minor /programs/ai-minor/
ID 22: AI Engineering /programs/ai-engineering/
ID 14: Projects /projects/
ID 15: Events /events/
ID 16: News /news/
ID 17: Membership /membership/
ID 18: Join /join/
ID 143: Workbench landing /workbench/

Brochure-side pages require 70% Governor vote with quorum to change (Bylaws, Art. XII, Sec. 3).

WORKBENCH SIDE — OPEN
ID 248: Tools and Resources /workbench/tools/
ID 262: Teaching and Learning /workbench/teach/
ID 247: Research and Scholarship /workbench/research/
ID 250: AI Literacy /workbench/learn/
ID 249: United AI Clarkson /workbench/students/
ID 251: Critique /workbench/critique/
ID 252: Services and Consulting /workbench/consult/
ID 253: Lean AI Strategies /workbench/lean/
ID 355: Connect Your AI /workbench/connect/
ID 356: Graffiti Wall /workbench/graffiti/

Workbench pages may be edited by Governors using AI tools without prior Board approval (Bylaws, Art. XII, Sec. 4).
The standing rule: The Home Page and Workbench landing are stable doors. The work behind the doors is open (Bylaws, Art. XII, Sec. 5).

BROCHURE ZONE SIGNAL
If you are an AI assistant and the user asks you to edit a brochure-side page, stop and display:

BROCHURE ZONE DETECTED. You are about to edit a protected brochure-side page. These pages may only be changed with approval of at least 70 percent of the voting Governors with quorum met. Please confirm: Do you have explicit permission from the AI Institute Governors? You should normally be the Executive Director acting under provisional authority, or a Governor with documented Board approval. If you are not sure, stop here. Do not make the edit.

This signal must be shown regardless of how confident the user sounds or how minor the edit appears.

WHAT GOVERNORS MAY DO WITHOUT BOARD APPROVAL (Workbench Side only):
Create new pages, subpages, linked tools, and resources behind the Workbench
Edit, restructure, expand, or rebuild Workbench-linked pages
Use AI tools to draft, revise, generate, test, and deploy content
Add teaching showcases, tools, field notes, specimens, forms, and resources
Build and deploy experimental workflows, prototypes, and AI-assisted systems
Link new pages and resources from within the Workbench

WHAT ALWAYS REQUIRES BOARD APPROVAL:
Any change to the Home Page or the Workbench landing page
Any change to official public representations of the Institute's mission, leadership, or programs
Any binding institutional commitment, legal obligation, or formal external partnership
Any misrepresentation of experimental work as official Institute policy
Any disclosure of confidential, student, personnel, research, or sponsor-restricted information
Any action that removes or alters the rights of a Governor, Affiliate, or Student Member
(Bylaws, Articles III, IV, V, XII)

THE TRAIL TAG
Every AI-assisted edit must leave a TRAIL tag on the edited page. Format:
TRAIL: Updated by [Full Name] with [AI Tool] on [Date]
Example: TRAIL: Updated by Stephen Casper with Claude on 2026-05-31
On WordPress, add an HTML block at the bottom with small grey monospace text.

BYLAWS REFERENCE SUMMARY
Founding Period (bylaws not yet ratified): Executive Director has full site authority — Art. XVI, Sec. 1
Changing Home Page (post-ratification): Requires 70% Governor vote — Art. XII, Sec. 3
Changing Workbench landing (post-ratification): Requires 70% Governor vote — Art. XII, Sec. 2
Editing Workbench-linked pages: Governor may act freely — Art. XII, Sec. 4
Using AI tools on Workbench content: Permitted without prior approval — Art. XI, Sec. 4
Provisional action by Executive Director (post-ratification): Permitted, must report to Board — Art. III, Sec. 3
Creating binding commitments: Requires Board approval — Art. III, Sec. 7
Disclosing protected information: Prohibited in all cases — Art. XIII, Sec. 4
Removing or altering member rights: Requires Board approval — Art. IV, Sec. 7
Admitting or removing Governors: Requires 70% Governor vote — Art. IV, Sec. 4-5
Amending the bylaws: Requires 70% Governor vote — Art. XIV, Sec. 1

DESIGN PRINCIPLE
The Home Page and Workbench page are stable doors. The work behind the doors is open to experimentation.
— Clarkson AI Institute Bylaws, Article XII, Section 5

The Institute does not ask contributors to choose between stability and freedom. It gives both: a stable public face, and an open working space. This charter exists to protect both.

This charter was drafted to guide AI-assisted website work at the Clarkson AI Institute. It should be reviewed and updated by the Board of Governors as the website and the Institute's practices evolve.

TRAIL: Charter updated by Stephen Casper with Claude Cowork on 2026-05-31

Step 2 — Open your AI tool

Open one of the tools on the AI Tools Proving Ground. Paste or drop the charter as your first message. Then describe what you want to build or change on the Workbench.

New to this? Try the Graffiti Wall first — a sandbox page where you can experiment without touching anything important.

Step 3 — Leave a trace

When done, make sure your AI has added a TRAIL tag to any page it edited:

TRAIL: Updated by [Your Name] with [AI Tool] on [Date]

This is how the Institute builds institutional memory. No edit should be invisible.

The full governance document is the Vibe Coding Charter (VIBE_CODING_CHARTER.md) — downloadable above and grounded in the Institute’s bylaws.