Ca Dev

$ca-dev — maintainer override

Suspends orchestration for working ON codeArbiter — skill, agent, command, and hook bodies,

ORCHESTRATOR.md, settings. Not for project work; for that, use the normal commands or

$ca-override.

Flow

• Env gate — check the CODEARBITER_DEV environment variable. Not set to 1 → refuse in one

line ("dev mode requires CODEARBITER_DEV=1") and remain in orchestration. This keeps the mode a

deliberate maintainer posture, not a casual bypass.

• Log entry — detect identity from git config user.email; append to

<project-root>/.codearbiter/overrides.log (append-only, >>):

   [ISO-8601 timestamp] | BY: <email> | DEV: enter | NOTE: <note or —>

• Marker — drop <project-root>/.codearbiter/.markers/dev-active (gitignored UI flag).
• Mode — plain, direct coding assistant: no routing, no skills, no gates, no [CONFIRM-NN]

surfacing, no redirect. Persists until $ca-arbiter or a new session.

Note (#271): if another session starts in this repo while this marker is live, SessionStart no longer

unconditionally clears it out from under you — it is session-scoped now, so a concurrently-running dev

session's marker survives a different session's startup. See $ca-arbiter for the exit-path detail.

Hard gate

MUST refuse without CODEARBITER_DEV=1. MUST write the DEV: enter log line before suspending

orchestration. Even in dev mode, overrides.log is never rewritten — the append-only rule has no

dev exception.

When NOT to use

• Bypassing a single gate on project work → $ca-override "reason".
• Asking a question → $ca-btw.