Nova Configuration

NOVA.md is your personal configuration file for Nova — the coordinator that executes your Runs, Schedules, Loops, Prototypes and Workflows. It’s plain Markdown: your naming conventions, your defaults, the language you want summaries in, the things Nova should always (or never) do.

Which file do I want?

NOVA.md configures the agent that executes your work — the one that launches the DevBox and delegates the coding, whether or not you are watching. For the assistant you talk to in the dashboard, which answers you in chat and does nothing until you ask, you want NUCLEUS.md instead. Two different agents, two different files; neither one reads the other’s.

Where to Edit

1. Open the orchestrator at your deployment URL
2. Go to Settings → App AI Assistants
3. Find the NOVA.md block, below the NUCLEUS.md one
4. Click Edit NOVA.md

The editor shows a live character count against a limit of 10,000 characters, plus an estimate of the tokens your file adds to every execution. Past the limit the counter turns red and Save comes back with an error instead of writing — your text is left exactly as you typed it, never silently truncated. Trim it and save again.

Reset clears the file completely: Nova goes back to its default behavior on your next execution. Emptying the editor and saving does the same thing — nothing is stored, and the next execution carries no customization at all.

Where It Applies

NOVA.md is applied to every execution Nova performs for you:

• Runs you start by hand, interactive or autonomous
• Schedules firing unattended — including at 3 a.m. with no browser open
• Loop iterations, Prototype contenders, and the Run and Prototype nodes of a Workflow

It is stored on the server, against your account, so a Schedule keeps using it long after you close the tab, and it follows you to another machine or another session. NUCLEUS.md is stored the same way; what separates the two files is when they apply — Nucleus only ever runs while you’re looking at it, and Nova mostly doesn’t.

Your file, your executions. A Schedule uses the NOVA.md of the person who created it, exactly as it already uses that person’s credentials and secrets. A teammate’s Runs use their own file, not yours. There is no shared or team-wide NOVA.md.

Editing NOVA.md never changes an execution already in flight — the file is read once when the execution is dispatched. The next one picks up your edit.

Note

NOVA.md customizes the coordinator, not the in-DevBox engine that writes the code. To steer the engine inside a repository, use that repository’s own agent instructions file (CLAUDE.md and friends), which the engine reads after cloning.

Example

## Naming Convention

- DevBoxes: {repo}-{issue-number}
- Branch format: feature/{issue-number}-{slug}

## Default Preferences

- Use worker 'ovh-1' unless I say otherwise
- 8192 MB memory for every DevBox

## Custom Instructions

- Write run summaries in Spanish
- Always run the test suite before opening a PR
- Link the ticket in every PR description

## Personality

- Be concise — no preamble
- Confirm before anything destructive

Brace patterns like {repo}-{issue-number} are your literal naming templates. Write them the way you want Nova to apply them; nothing fills them in for you, and they are not the fill-in blanks of a Shortcut.

Improving your draft

The editor carries the sparkle (✦) — the prompt improver. Because this field holds a standing configuration rather than a one-off job, the sparkle here runs the system-prompt rewrite: it regroups your preferences under your own headings, keeps your voice and your naming templates, and never turns “be concise” into a numbered work order. The instruction rewrite — goal, steps, what “done” means — is what the same sparkle does in a Run or Schedule field. Accept replaces the draft; Discard leaves it exactly as you typed it.

Tips

• Write standing preferences, not one-off jobs — a job belongs in the Run’s instruction field, where it applies to that run only.
• Every character counts against the prompt of every execution, so keep it tight. The editor’s token estimate tells you what you’re adding.
• Your preferences are added to Nova’s prompt; they never replace it. Tool contracts, approval gates and safety confirmations still apply, and nothing you write here can switch them off.

Next

• Nova — what the coordinator does on every execution.
• NUCLEUS.md — the standing file for the assistant you chat with in the dashboard.
• Prompt improver — the ✦ on this editor, and why it rewrites this field differently from a Run instruction.
• Settings — the rest of the App AI Assistants section.