---
title: "Glossary"
description: "A one-page index of one-line definitions for aachat terms. The basis and details of each definition live in the referenced canonical pages."
---

# Glossary

This is the index of aachat terms. When asked what a term means, answer immediately with the definition here, and use the referenced page as the basis for details. The order is not alphabetical; closely related terms are placed next to each other.

## Worldview

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **agentic company** | Not a company with AI agents lined up beside it, but a company where you share an idea, an agent reads the project context and starts moving, outcomes and decisions remain, and the next agent and human build on top of them | index.md |
| **Agentic Company Builder** | aachat's category name. The builder for building an agentic company. The promise is Build your agentic company | index.md |
| **Agent work becomes company assets** | The product-level evidence that supports the promise. Every time work is entrusted to an agent, context, deliverables, decisions, and the agent's capabilities accumulate in the company | index.md |

## Places and participants

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **team** | The unit that shares a purpose. Corresponds to a GitHub organization or user. Two types: `personal` / `org` | concepts.md |
| **project** | The place of work inside a team. Three kinds: `project` / `stream` / `dm`; do not mix their uses | projects.md |
| **stream** | The team-wide announcement and casual channel. Human-only, undeletable, one per team. Agents cannot join, read, or be mentioned in it. Make requests to agents in a project | projects.md |
| **dm** | A 1:1 project between you and one agent (`dm:<agent>.<owner>`). Created automatically when the agent is brought in | projects.md |
| **project status** | The project's state. Four values: `planning` / `active` / `completed` / `archived`. Session execution, follow-ups, and participation — plus viewing the timeline and Shared Documents — are possible only in `active` | projects.md |
| **Concept** | A decision criterion the team has agreed on. 14 kinds (purpose, strategy, principles, decisions, findings, etc.). Agents submit proposals (pending); humans review and accept or decline them on the Concepts screen in the WebUI | concept-registry.md |
| **Entity** | The map of what the company consists of (Company map). 9 kinds; `person`/`partner`/`agreement` are sensitive and cannot be written by agents | company.md |
| **OKR** | The team's objectives and Key Results (2 to 5). `draft → active → closed / cancelled`. Agents can register, update, and check in from a session | okr.md |
| **similarity gate** | The automatic check run when a new Concept is proposed. If a similar one exists, registration is rejected with `similar_found`. Resubmit with `proceed_token` only once you've judged it to be genuinely different | concept-registry.md |
| **sensitive kind** | Entity's `person` / `partner` / `agreement`. The server rejects registration/changes from an agent and directs it to ask a human | company.md |
| **agent** | A member that participates in a project and works. One agent = one GitHub repo. Named `{base_name}.{owner_login}` | agents.md |
| **character** | The pixel-art avatar that represents an agent. It signals the agent's presence and conveys state through expressions. Color is each agent's individuality | webui.md |
| **role** | Permissions within a project. `admin` (manage) / `collaborator` (read-write) / `viewer` (read-only) | webui.md |
| **join link** | A link for joining a team or project. Whoever opens it joins instantly (there is no approval-wait mechanism). Can be invalidated with Rotate | projects.md |
| **client entry** | A dedicated entry link for external clients. Sending a request through the link provisions a project with a predefined member and agent configuration | webui.md |

## The agent's substance

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **agent repo** | The GitHub repo that is the agent's substance. Changes are made via git commit and take effect from the next session after push. No one but the owner can manage it | agents.md |
| **identity** | The definition of the agent's persona and role (`identity.md` at the agent repo root). Injected at session start | agents.md |
| **memory** | The agent's memory storage (`memory/` in the agent repo) | agents.md |
| **knowledge** | The agent's knowledge storage (`knowledge/` in the agent repo) | agents.md |
| **skills** | The agent's reusable capabilities and procedures (`.agents/skills/` or `.claude/skills/` in the agent repo). Take effect from the next session after push | agents.md |
| **runtime** | The engine that executes the agent. `claude-acp` (WebUI label: Claude) / `codex-acp` (label: Codex). Switched per agent; takes effect after restarting `aachat up` | agents.md |
| **dormant** | The state of excluding an agent from `aachat up` startup targets. Reactivate with `aachat agent update <name> --no-dormant` | agents.md |

## How execution works

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **aachat up** | The single resident process that starts all runtimes of owned agents. If it is not running, sending a request starts no work | cli.md |
| **session** | The lifecycle of the process in which the agent is actually running. `starting → running → stopping → stopped`; abnormal termination is `failed`. Auto-stops after 60 minutes idle | sessions.md |
| **turn** | One round trip within a session. Has 2 states: `idle` / `active` | sessions.md |
| **workspace** | The working directory isolated per session (`~/aachat/.run/workspaces/<agent>--<sid8>`) | sessions.md |
| **composer** | The message input area at the bottom of the project screen. Selecting an agent as target and sending constitutes a request, which starts a session | webui.md |
| **mention (@mention)** | Addressing an agent with `@<agent>` in a message body. A notification is delivered, but **by itself it does not start a session** | sessions.md |
| **follow-up / queue** | Additional instructions sent to a running session. If sent while a turn is executing, they are queued and processed in order after the current turn finishes | sessions.md |
| **scheduled follow-up** | A one-time or recurring (1-minute to 1-day interval) additional request delivered later to the same session. Created from Schedule in the thread composer | sessions.md |
| **scheduled start (run trigger)** | A reservation that starts a new session once when its condition is met. The condition is a specified time (After) or a shared-document field match (DocumentMatch). Configured from the composer's When chip | sessions.md |
| **Permission** | The approval an agent requests before a high-impact operation. The agent waits on that operation until you choose allow or deny | webui.md |
| **Workspace panel** | The WebUI panel that monitors session execution in real time. Work logs, Permission responses, follow-ups, and interrupts gather here | webui.md |
| **delegation (handoff / delegation)** | An agent inside a session starting and monitoring another agent's session via `chat session run/read/send` and entrusting work to it. Conditions: the delegate is online and a member of the same project | sessions.md |
| **working repository** | The GitHub repo where the agent reads and writes code in a session. Distinct from the agent repo. Determined in order: session-specified → project setting → team default | sessions.md |
| **Launch Report** | The startup result report of `aachat up`. Records started / failed / dormant per agent and loaded / missing / denied for environment variables. Check via `aachat status` and `~/aachat/.run/logs/up.log` | environment.md |
| **environment.yaml** | The declaration of dependency packages and environment variables the agent needs (`environment.yaml` in the agent repo). Only names and purposes may be declared; writing secret values is rejected | environment.md |
| **env provider** | The mechanism that resolves declared environment variable values at startup and passes them to the agent. Values exist only in `~/aachat/.run/.env` or the Infisical CLI, and approval is deny-by-default per agent | environment.md |
| **connected repo** | A development repo connected to aachat with `aachat init`. External agents such as Cursor and Claude Code can operate aachat from that repo | connected-repo.md |

## Messages and notifications

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **Project Timeline** | The project's chronological view. Messages, document cards, and session activity are interleaved oldest-first. In the CLI, `project read` / `project send` are the input and output | projects.md |
| **Asks** | The mechanism by which an agent hands a decision back to a human. A question with options is placed in the project, and in the WebUI you answer with option buttons. An Ask is immutable; answers accumulate as revisions | projects.md |
| **Inbox** | The list of unhandled incoming context (unread notifications and messages) | webui.md |
| **via label** | A free-form label indicating which client sent a message (e.g. `cursor` / `claude-code`). Attached with the `--via` flag | cli.md |
| **Home** | The screen that opens right after login (`/home`). A cross-team overview of agent activity, joined projects, teams, and notifications addressed to you (Feed) | webui.md |

## Deliverables and sharing

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **Shared Documents** | The canonical, non-flowing deliverables and knowledge tied to a project. Put long research results, specs, and task lists here, not in messages. The canonical copy is stored on the server | shared-documents.md |
| **projection** | The local projection of Shared Documents (the `aachat/projects/` directory). Bidirectionally synced only while `aachat up` is running. The server is canonical; local is the projection | trust-boundary.md |
| **kind** | The type of a Shared Document. The `_aachat:` block in `_template.md` can define its schema and scaffold | shared-documents.md |
| **WikiLink** | A reference link between Shared Documents. Only the full-path form `[[aachat/projects/<team>/<project>/docs/<kind>/<id>.md]]` is valid | shared-documents.md |
| **document card** | The card that appears in the timeline when a Shared Document is created or updated. Clicking it opens the document | webui.md |
| **preview_fields** | A per-kind setting specifying which fields to display on the document card and in what order | shared-documents.md |
| **Project HTML** | The mechanism for viewing and sharing agent-built HTML deliverables (`aachat/projects/<team>/<project>/html/`, entry point `index.html`) in the browser. Open HTML for members and Share HTML for outsiders | html.md |
| **share token / share link** | A time-limited, read-only URL for viewing a Shared Document or project context without logging in. Can be revoked | webui.md |
| **Project Media** | The server-stored area that publishes finished images, videos, and PDFs as project assets. Publishing happens by placing files in `media/`, and items are referenced by canonical URL (`https://aachat.work/m/<uuid>`). `--attach` attachments are not published here | media.md |
| **Project App** | The mechanism that publishes the code in a project's `apps/<name>/` and runs it as Operations on the App Host. Operated with the `chat app` commands and the WebUI Apps tab | apps.md |
| **App Host** | The isolated aachat-side sandbox where published Project Apps execute. The only place where agent-written code runs outside your local machine | apps.md |
| **mindmap / brainstorm / task blocks** | Structured fenced blocks writable in chat messages and shared documents. Used for organizing thinking / diverging on ideas / breaking down execution requests. Rendered read-only | markdown-blocks.md |

## Catalog

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **Discover** | The catalog that serves as the entry point for public agents, skills, and templates. Find and bring things in from here; publish to here | webui.md |
| **clone** | Duplicating and registering an agent found in Discover as your own private repository | webui.md |
| **submit (publish)** | Publishing your own agent to Discover | webui.md |
| **template** | The unit for publishing and adopting Shared Document kind definitions. Operated via the `aachat template` commands or the WebUI | shared-documents.md |

## CLI

| Term | Definition | Details |
|---|---|---|
| **aachat (CLI)** | The CLI with which humans and external agents operate teams, agents, projects, and sessions | cli.md |
| **chat (CLI)** | The agent-only CLI inside sessions started by `aachat up`. Not for use outside a session | cli.md |
| **aachat-mcp** | The MCP server automatically connected to `aachat up` sessions. Provides **17** tools across Concept, Entity, OKR, and search (`aachat_search` is one of them) | cli.md |
| **aachat_search** | One of aachat-mcp's tools. Searches the messages of your projects by keyword. **Concept, Entity, and OKR are out of scope** (each has its own dedicated read tool) | cli.md |