Guides

<h1>ᚾ&nbsp;NornGate — Guides</h1>

Task-oriented walkthroughs. Where Core Concepts explains the model and Reference is lookup, a guide takes you from nothing to a working, verified result — and every guide ends by proving it worked against Urd, because if it happened, it is in the ledger.

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ᚨ Overview

Each guide assumes the concepts and points back at the reference. They share one shape: a concrete goal, real config (YAML) and CLI, a verification step (query Urd or norngate-cli to confirm the change took effect), and a rollback. No step asks you to trust that it worked — you check.

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ᛒ The guides

Guide	Goal	Prerequisites
Setting Up Subdomains (Realms)	Provision a trust zone: subdomain, posture, NetworkPolicy, quota.	The Nine Worlds, Configuration
Configuring Gates	Tune G0–G4: timeouts, rate limits, approval budget, sandbox limits.	The Five Gates, Configuration
Integrating AI Agents	Put an agent behind the gated path — SVID identity, idempotency keys, reading verdicts.	The Five Gates, API Reference
Custom Domains & TLS	Map a public domain to a realm and terminate TLS at the edge.	The Spine, Setting Up Realms
Monitoring & Observability	Wire the Norns: metrics (Verðandi), ledger queries (Urðr), forecasting (Skuld).	Urd Ledger, Performance & Scalability
Disaster Recovery (Ragnarök Drill)	Rehearse restore-from-checkpoint and verify the chain.	Urd Ledger, CLI Tools

References. Tooling the guides use: Kubernetes CRDs, Istio (per The Spine), SPIFFE/SPIRE. Verification model: Urd Ledger. Naming doctrine: Prose Edda / Poetic Edda, per Norse Cosmology & Platform Design.

ᚾ NornGate — Guides

Task-oriented walkthroughs. Where [Core Concepts](Core-Concepts) explains the model and [Reference](Reference) is lookup, a guide takes you from nothing to a working, verified result — and every guide ends by proving it worked against Urd, because if it happened, it is in the ledger.

---

ᚨ Overview

Each guide assumes the concepts and points back at the reference. They share one shape: a concrete goal, real config (YAML) and CLI, a verification step (query [Urd](Urd-Ledger) or norngate-cli to confirm the change took effect), and a rollback. No step asks you to trust that it worked — you check.

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ᛒ The guides

Guide	Goal	Prerequisites
[Setting Up Subdomains (Realms)](Setting-Up-Subdomains-Realms)	Provision a trust zone: subdomain, posture, NetworkPolicy, quota.	[The Nine Worlds](The-Nine-Worlds), [Configuration](Configuration)
[Configuring Gates](Configuring-Gates)	Tune G0–G4: timeouts, rate limits, approval budget, sandbox limits.	[The Five Gates](The-Five-Gates), [Configuration](Configuration)
[Integrating AI Agents](Integrating-AI-Agents)	Put an agent behind the gated path — SVID identity, idempotency keys, reading verdicts.	[The Five Gates](The-Five-Gates), [API Reference](API-Reference)
[Custom Domains & TLS](Custom-Domains-and-TLS)	Map a public domain to a realm and terminate TLS at the edge.	[The Spine](The-Spine), Setting Up Realms
[Monitoring & Observability](Monitoring-and-Observability)	Wire the Norns: metrics (Verðandi), ledger queries (Urðr), forecasting (Skuld).	[Urd Ledger](Urd-Ledger), [Performance & Scalability](Performance-and-Scalability)
[Disaster Recovery (Ragnarök Drill)](Disaster-Recovery-Ragnarok-Drill)	Rehearse restore-from-checkpoint and verify the chain.	[Urd Ledger](Urd-Ledger), [CLI Tools](CLI-Tools)

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ᚱ Recommended path

The order is not arbitrary — each step depends on the ground the previous one lays:

1. Realms first. The topology is the threat model; gates and agents live inside realms, so establish the trust zones before tuning anything in them.
2. Gates. With zones in place, tune the pipeline per realm — a public Midgard gate and an untrusted Jotunheim gate want different budgets.
3. Agents. Once the gated path exists, connect agents to it. They inherit G0–G4 by being on-mesh; nothing in the agent changes.
4. Custom Domains & TLS. Expose the realms that need public reach, terminating TLS at the edge.
5. Monitoring. Turn on the feedback loop before you depend on it — telemetry that merely watches is decoration; telemetry that feeds back is what keeps the runtime from rotting.
6. Ragnarök drill. Rehearse recovery last, because the drill exercises everything above — realms, gates, ledger, and the signed checkpoint.

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ᛜ How a guide is structured

Every guide follows the same four beats, so you always know where the proof is:

• Goal — the concrete end state.
• Steps — real GateConfig / Realm / Policy YAML and norngate-cli commands, not pseudocode.
• Verify — a query against Urd or a norngate-cli call that shows the change landed (a new config version pinned to a decision, a realm responding, a drill that replayed clean).
• Rollback — how to re-pin the previous version if it did not.

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ᛖ Next steps

Start where the path does: [Setting Up Subdomains (Realms)](Setting-Up-Subdomains-Realms). If you are only adding an agent to an existing deployment, jump to [Integrating AI Agents](Integrating-AI-Agents).

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Iconography

Section glyphs are Elder Futhark runes (Unicode Runic block, U+16A0–U+16FF) — semantic, not emoji. Full set on [Home](Home#iconography):

Rune	Name	Gloss	Marks
ᚾ	Nauðiz	need, constraint	the platform mark
ᚨ	Ansuz	the word, instruction	overview
ᛒ	Berkanan	growth, building	the guides
ᚱ	Raidō	the ride, the road	recommended path
ᛜ	Ingwaz	the structured whole	guide structure
ᛖ	Ehwaz	the horse, onward	next steps

References. Tooling the guides use: Kubernetes CRDs, Istio (per [The Spine](The-Spine)), [SPIFFE](https://spiffe.io/)/SPIRE. Verification model: [Urd Ledger](Urd-Ledger). Naming doctrine: Prose Edda / Poetic Edda, per [Norse Cosmology & Platform Design](Norse-Cosmology-and-Platform-Design).