Prompt drift is the loss of creative intent as a team repeatedly rewrites prompts across separate generations. Small wording changes can alter style, identity, framing, or story details even when the team is trying to make a minor adjustment. Each new attempt is technically a new prompt, so anything not restated can quietly disappear.
What it looks like in practice
A team prompts a hero shot at midday: 'protagonist walking through an autumn forest, golden hour, anamorphic.' The output is good but a touch warm. They re-prompt: 'protagonist walking through an autumn forest, slightly cooler grade.' The new output is cooler — but also the anamorphic feel has vanished because the team didn't restate it. Three prompts later, the shot is technically a sibling of the first but visually a different film. None of the changes were intentional; each one was a small unstated drop.
Why it matters
Prompt drift turns iteration into rework because each new prompt can accidentally move the project away from its approved direction. Structured workflows replace freeform re-prompting with edits to project state, so a change in one place is reapplied everywhere consistently.
How to prevent it
Replace freeform re-prompting with edits to project state. In GATA, a 'cooler grade' is a change to the look record, not a fresh prompt; the anamorphic feel stays because nobody touched it. Each iteration adjusts the structured pieces that need to change and leaves the rest stable. Re-prompting becomes a precision tool rather than a memory test, and approved direction survives multiple revision rounds.