Skip to content

Glossary

Public terms, defined once. Terms are added as patterns are written.

  • Agentic workflow: a body of work carried out by one or more software agents under defined routing, review, and approval rules.
  • Pattern: a named, reusable design that solves one recurring problem in running agentic work.
  • Route contract: an agreement about what kind of work goes where and what checks apply.
  • Review gate: a point where output is checked before it is trusted or acted on.
  • Evaluation harness: a set of fixtures and checks that test agent output against expected results.
  • Final check: the last review step before output is released.
  • Source boundary: the rule that separates working notes, curated knowledge, raw evidence, and private material.
  • Captured material: a note, file, transcript, draft, or artifact that has entered the system but has not yet been curated.
  • Raw notes: captured material before it has been cleaned up, reviewed, or connected to source references.
  • Working notes: material that is useful for current work but not yet ready for default retrieval.
  • Candidate knowledge: captured or working material that may become reusable knowledge after review.
  • Curated knowledge: material that has been cleaned up, connected to sources, and prepared for reuse.
  • Rich artifact: a curated artifact that carries source context, relationships, status, and enough explanation to be useful later.
  • Promoted knowledge: curated knowledge that has passed review and is eligible for its intended retrieval path.
  • Private material: sensitive or personal material that stays outside ordinary retrieval.
  • Retrieval: the act of finding relevant artifacts for a new problem, strategy, opportunity, or decision.
  • Human check: a person's review of important claims before relying on them.
  • Manifest entry: a record that says whether an artifact is eligible for retrieval and what authority it carries.
  • Promotion log: a record of why an artifact moved from one lifecycle state to another.
  • Claim posture: the label that shows how strongly a claim is held, such as unreviewed, self-checked, reviewed, or accepted.
  • Source posture: the visible status of retrieved material: where it came from, how settled it is, and what judgment it still needs.
  • Authority class: the retrieval status that tells an agent whether material is default context, request-only context, or excluded from retrieval.