--- title: "Glossary · Agentic Atlas" description: "Every term the Atlas mints, defined once in the Export manifest" canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary" last-updated: "2026-08-19" --- The minted legend # Glossary Terms selected by the Export manifest, in its authoritative order. Catalog revision · 35263c4c415da742953d0462804fb14424e2244dae4c63efd27e468988de70ab ## Terms Contents of the legend 53 terms minted [Actor](https://agentic-atlas.dev#actor) [Admission](https://agentic-atlas.dev#admission) [Affinity](https://agentic-atlas.dev#affinity) [Agent definition](https://agentic-atlas.dev#agent-definition) [Blast radius](https://agentic-atlas.dev#blast-radius) [Capability class](https://agentic-atlas.dev#capability-class) [Config](https://agentic-atlas.dev#config) [Consumer orientation](https://agentic-atlas.dev#consumer-orientation) [Context envelope](https://agentic-atlas.dev#context-envelope) [Contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev#contract) [Cost relocation](https://agentic-atlas.dev#cost-relocation) [Coverage](https://agentic-atlas.dev#coverage) [Dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev#dispatch) [Domain](https://agentic-atlas.dev#domain) [Episodic](https://agentic-atlas.dev#episodic) [Eviction](https://agentic-atlas.dev#eviction) [Family](https://agentic-atlas.dev#family) [Gate](https://agentic-atlas.dev#gate) [Hand-off test](https://agentic-atlas.dev#hand-off-test) [Inherited context](https://agentic-atlas.dev#inherited-context) [Kind](https://agentic-atlas.dev#kind) [Momentum (context momentum)](https://agentic-atlas.dev#momentum-context-momentum) [Observability](https://agentic-atlas.dev#observability) [Orchestrator](https://agentic-atlas.dev#orchestrator) [Parent / child](https://agentic-atlas.dev#parent-child) [Path breadcrumb](https://agentic-atlas.dev#path-breadcrumb) [Persistence](https://agentic-atlas.dev#persistence) [Placement](https://agentic-atlas.dev#placement) [Pointer](https://agentic-atlas.dev#pointer) [Prime window](https://agentic-atlas.dev#prime-window) [Primitive](https://agentic-atlas.dev#primitive) [Propagation scope](https://agentic-atlas.dev#propagation-scope) [Re-dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev#re-dispatch) [Relevancy](https://agentic-atlas.dev#relevancy) [Rent test](https://agentic-atlas.dev#rent-test) [Residency](https://agentic-atlas.dev#residency) [Return](https://agentic-atlas.dev#return) [Seam](https://agentic-atlas.dev#seam) [Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev#skill) [Spec lane / flavor lane](https://agentic-atlas.dev#spec-lane-flavor-lane) [Specialization](https://agentic-atlas.dev#specialization) [State](https://agentic-atlas.dev#state) [Statelessness](https://agentic-atlas.dev#statelessness) [Status ladder](https://agentic-atlas.dev#status-ladder) [Subagent](https://agentic-atlas.dev#subagent) [Subskill](https://agentic-atlas.dev#subskill) [Taste](https://agentic-atlas.dev#taste) [Template](https://agentic-atlas.dev#template) [Tool](https://agentic-atlas.dev#tool) [Trigger contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev#trigger-contract) [Window (context window)](https://agentic-atlas.dev#window-context-window) [Workflow](https://agentic-atlas.dev#workflow) [Workspace](https://agentic-atlas.dev#workspace) [Actor](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/actor) actor a participant that exercises judgment or performs work in a workflow. LLM actors have context windows; humans have their own attention and information constraints. Deterministic tools participate but exercise no judgment of their own. ([context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy), human-in-the-loop gate) [Admission](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/admission) admission the event that loads an artifact into a window. ([context flow](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-flow)) [Affinity](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/affinity) affinity a pairwise predictive profile between a task and a context space, with at least two readings: reusable overlap and conflict risk. It is estimated before co-scheduling; *relevancy* is the resident state observed afterward, and alignment is the pattern that acts on the estimate. (context alignment) [Agent definition](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/agent-definition) agent-definition the skill shape one altitude up: name + description + body defining a *dispatchable actor*; may carry authored weight. ([heavy agent](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/heavy-agent)) [Blast radius](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/blast-radius) blast-radius how much of the world sits inside an effect's footprint; what compensation costs when a run must be unwound. Bounded by the seam the effect landed at — a contracted seam prices the discard cheap. ([effect discipline](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/effect-discipline), [contract documentation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)) [Capability class](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/capability-class) capability-class the corpus's way of saying *which model* without naming one: an **ordering**, never a set of named buckets. A node says *same class*, *lower class*, *higher class* and never has to say what "frontier" means — an ordering with no named levels has nothing in it to go obsolete on a vendor's release schedule. One superlative is admitted, for a claim with no second model to be read against: *the highest class the claim's own dated evidence covered*, which is why it is only available to a claim that names its evidence. Relational ratios stay primary; class is reached for only where a ratio cannot reach. The node speaks in classes and ratios; the research memo names the exact model, version and date. (ADR 0018) [Config](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/config) config human-authored, agent-read declared preferences; what an episodic skill bootstraps from. (config-as-bootstrap) [Consumer orientation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/consumer-orientation) consumer-orientation which party an artifact crossing a seam is shaped for: agent-forward (a reasoning stage) or user-forward (the human). Exists only where a move hands an artifact downstream. (externalizing tools & systems, distillation) [Context envelope](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/context-envelope) context-envelope a distilled artifact handed across a seam: payload + declared shape + provenance. (context envelope) [Contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/contract) contract the designed expression of expectations at a seam, ranging from informal prose to mechanically enforced structure. Every seam has an interface; only the needed share must be made explicit. ([the contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)) [Cost relocation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/cost-relocation) cost-relocation moving when or by whom a payload's cost is paid: *later* (deferred context) or *elsewhere* (subagent offload). Relocation and transformation are orthogonal; a workflow may compose relocation with selection or distillation. ([cost relocation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/cost-relocation)) [Coverage](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/coverage) coverage what fraction of a task's *actual intent* the written clauses at a seam capture; orthogonal to per-clause checkability (the determinism ladder). Raising it is contract-side craft; clause-writing that stops paying before intent is captured is *coverage exhaustion*. ([verification asymmetry](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/verification-asymmetry), [the contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)) [Dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/dispatch) dispatch the request that creates and initializes a child LLM execution. Its inputs include manually packed, inherited, and ambient context. ([LLM dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/llm-dispatch)) [Domain](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/domain) domain a top-level navigational grouping. It is not a node kind and need not imply that every sibling shares one classification axis. (patterns index) [Episodic](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/episodic) episodic running in discrete, independent invocations with no memory between them. (config-as-bootstrap) [Eviction](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/eviction) eviction how residency ends: compaction, summarization, truncation, a dispatch returning, or a session ending. Eviction ends recall from the artifact; decay can reduce recall efficacy while the artifact remains resident, but is not eviction. ([context flow](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-flow)) [Family](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/family) family the former name for a top-level domain; retained in prose where useful, but not treated as a node kind. (patterns index) [Gate](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/gate) gate a contracted control-flow seam for human clarification, approval, or escalation; not a child LLM dispatch. (human-in-the-loop gate) [Hand-off test](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/hand-off-test) hand-off-test does the move produce an artifact handed to someone downstream? Passing moves (externalization, distillation) carry consumer orientation; agent-internal moves don't — "user-forward composition" is a category error. (externalizing tools & systems) [Inherited context](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/inherited-context) inherited-context always-on context admitted at *boot* into every descendant actor's window: system prompt, `CLAUDE.md` / memory-file lines. No downstream actor chose it and none can evict it — the widest propagation scope, hence the system's highest admission bar. ([context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy)) [Kind](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/kind) kind what a spec node *is*: `concept` / `pattern` / `example`. (AUTHORING §1) [Momentum (context momentum)](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/momentum-context-momentum) momentum-context-momentum the propensity to continue the resident trajectory: the window *steers* generation, not just informs it. Sign-neutral — the same force behind in-context learning (pointed well) and doom loops (pointed wrong); distinct from *friction* (conflicting content, always negative). Fresh dispatch = zero momentum — which is also the identity test: steering that survives a reset is the model's prior, not momentum. ([momentum](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/momentum)) [Observability](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/observability) observability the smallest structured evidence sufficient to reconstruct what governed a run, what context/tools influenced it, what effects occurred, which checks passed or failed, and where failure originated. It favors receipts and manifests over retaining every intermediate token. ([ADR 0009](https://agentic-atlas.dev/decisions/0009-context-design-objectives)) [Orchestrator](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/orchestrator) orchestrator the role currently holding a larger objective and coordinating bounded parts. It is a relative control role, not a permanent actor type. (workflow decomposition) [Parent / child](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/parent-child) parent-child relative positions on one LLM dispatch edge: the parent creates a distinct child execution; that child may become a parent on another edge. ([LLM dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/llm-dispatch)) [Path breadcrumb](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/path-breadcrumb) path-breadcrumb the `Path:` header line; the authoritative position of a node in the tree (folders mirror it). (AUTHORING §2) [Persistence](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/persistence) persistence continuity constructed outside a stateless LLM execution through configuration or durable state artifacts. (persistence) [Placement](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/placement) placement an artifact's relative position within the window at a moment during residency, measured proportionally rather than by a durable token threshold. Placement can change recall efficacy, but its effect is conditional rather than universal. ([context flow](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-flow)) [Pointer](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/pointer) pointer the resident stand-in for an off-window payload; costs its own few tokens always, and carries the signal that triggers paying for the rest. A **data pointer** (deferred context: follow it, get bytes) or a **function pointer** (subagent offload: call it, get a return — the agent's name + description, whose contract role is the *trigger contract*). ([cost relocation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/cost-relocation)) [Prime window](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/prime-window) prime-window shorthand for an empirically estimated efficient operating region for a stated task distribution, model, context construction, outcome measure, and cost/latency constraint. A revisable evaluation target, not a universal token threshold. ([context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy), context efficiency) [Primitive](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/primitive) primitive a motivation-agnostic substrate that patterns *wield* rather than apply: LLM dispatch (the parent-child execution edge) and the contract (the seam). (AUTHORING → terms of art) [Propagation scope](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/propagation-scope) propagation-scope how many windows an artifact will be billed in: one actor's (a skill body), every actor it's registered with (a description), or every descendant's (inherited context). Required value scales with it — the wider the scope, the higher the admission bar. ([context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy)) [Re-dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/re-dispatch) re-dispatch discard a bad return and re-run fresh; the recovery move native to stateless dispatches, where discarding is cheaper than repairing. (validated seam / re-dispatch) [Relevancy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/relevancy) relevancy the fraction of an actor's resident window that is load-bearing *for the task at hand*; context efficiency's state measure. (context efficiency, context alignment) [Rent test](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/rent-test) rent-test admission criterion for the deferral ladder *(ruled 2026-08-03)*: an artifact belongs on the ladder only if its expected fetch value across the skill's serving distribution beats its pointer's standing rent; the losing verdict is scope discipline — cut it. Craft form: if you can't name the session archetype that fetches it, cut it. Applies to any resident surface, data pointer or trigger contract alike. ([deferred context](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/deferred-context)) [Residency](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/residency) residency the span an artifact stays in a window; what statelessness re-bills every remaining turn. ([context flow](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-flow), [context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy)) [Return](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/return) return the optional result, status, failure, or artifact pointer sent from a child back to its parent. Its declared shape is the *return contract*. ([contract documentation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)) [Seam](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/seam) seam a boundary where data, control, or effects cross between workflow components. Its load-bearing expectations are made explicit and checked only to the rigor the consequence warrants. ([the contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)) [Skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/skill) skill a named, described body of instructions: one useful packaging and reuse surface for workflow behavior, not the corpus's unit of analysis. ([baseline skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)) [Spec lane / flavor lane](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/spec-lane-flavor-lane) spec-lane-flavor-lane terse canonical write-ups vs. voiced teaching narrative; a flavor renders its spec subtree and never contradicts it. (AUTHORING) [Specialization](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/specialization) specialization a pattern nested under another pattern, sharpening it (subagent offload → heavy agent). Not a primitive: it inherits its parent's move. (AUTHORING → terms of art) [State](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/state) state machine-written accumulated memory with an explicit writer or concurrency protocol. (durable state) [Statelessness](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/statelessness) statelessness treat each model invocation as a function of its declared window: retained conversation is logically presented again, and continuity must come from that window, platform-managed reconstruction, or external state—not presumed private mutable memory. Cost face: repeated admission. Feature face: explicit-state dispatches can be disposable and reproducible. ([statelessness](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/statelessness); cost → [context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy), feature → validated seam / re-dispatch) [Status ladder](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/status-ladder) status-ladder spec-lane maturity: `seeded` → `drafting` → `fleshed` (the idea is done; claims-freeze) → `stable` (fleshed + kind-conditional proof obligations), with `needs-work` as the regression flag. No rung encodes publication readiness. (AUTHORING §6) [Subagent](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/subagent) subagent a child LLM execution with a distinct context. Its canvas is fresh by default but may include inherited context; a return is optional. ([LLM dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/llm-dispatch)) [Subskill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/subskill) subskill a bounded skill invoked by a parent *within the same actor*, behind a documented seam. (workflow decomposition) [Taste](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/taste) taste a distilled preview of a payload, sized and shaped to inform one decision: *descend into this / skip it*. Its consumer is a **decider**, not a reasoner. Output of distillation whose declared shape targets a navigation choice; the resident surface progressive disclosure reads at every node of its tree. Its quality — how faithfully it predicts what lies behind it — is its *scent* (kept informal). (progressive disclosure) [Template](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/template) template a named output scaffold the agent generates *within*, rather than from a blank page. (template-constrained generation) [Tool](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/tool) tool externalized logic *and boundaries* the agent invokes (CLI / API / MCP / server) rather than contains; shapes how the agent can interact. (externalizing tools & systems) [Trigger contract](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/trigger-contract) trigger-contract the description's second job: it tells the model *when this fires*. ([baseline skill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)) [Window (context window)](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/window-context-window) window-context-window the finite capacity an actor holds everything in — instructions, descriptions, working material. It fills, it degrades, and everything in it costs. ([context economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy)) [Workflow](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/workflow) workflow a system in which an LLM makes at least one runtime judgment that materially shapes a later action, artifact, route, or effect. ([ADR 0007](https://agentic-atlas.dev/decisions/0007-workflow-scope-and-reader)) [Workspace](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary/workspace) workspace the filesystem actors share; an external channel alongside dispatch and optional return. Every location one actor writes and another reads is a seam with a nonzero write→read gap. ([LLM dispatch](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/llm-dispatch), [contract documentation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation))