docs/wiki/glossary.md

# Glossary

What this answers: terms - the domain words a newcomer meets, and what each means here.

Part of the [project wiki](index.md). One canonical home per fact -
link to it, never copy it. Current truth, history and future intent are
kept apart and labelled.

## Which domain terms does a newcomer need, and what does each mean here?

- **Station** - one of the fixed stopping points a pass walks through (e.g.
  product, decide, wiki, coverage); see the station table in
  `skills/everything/SKILL.md`.
- **Station reference** - the detailed how-to for one station, loaded on
  demand instead of kept resident; lives under
  `skills/everything/references/` (e.g. `akinator-wiki.md`,
  `akinator-decide.md`).
- **Knowledge delta** - the set of rules/skills/context/memory/docs paths a
  batch declares it changed, required by every batch; defined in
  `rules/01-knowledge-delta-per-batch.md`.
- **Router** - a generated AI entry-point file (`CLAUDE.md`, `AGENTS.md`,
  `CODEX.md`, etc.) rendered from one shared source; see
  `context/router-contract.md` and `scripts/render_routers.py`.
- **Portable pack** - the one skill projected for Codex and Cursor, plus the
  always-on contract and the Cursor rule, built into `.agents/`; generated by
  `scripts/build_codex_pack.py` (`rules/07-codex-pack-is-generated.md`).
- **Ledger** - the append-only committed record of failures, questions,
  decisions, surprises, requirements and drift; schema and usage in
  `docs/ledger.md`.
- **Fingerprint** - the normalized hash (`error_class`, `touched_module`,
  `operation_kind`) that identifies a failure across occurrences so recurrence
  can be counted; defined in `docs/ledger.md`.
- **Drift** - a business, product or scope fact that moved from what was
  originally specified (area/before/after/why), recorded as a ledger `drift`
  record; see `docs/ledger.md` and `docs/wiki/drift/README.md`.
- **Requirement status** - one of `missing | changed | current | dropped`,
  the state of a product requirement recorded in a ledger `requirement`
  record; see `docs/ledger.md`.
- **Brief** - `.ai/BRIEF.md`, what a new session reads first, capped to a
  token budget set by `brief_tier` in `.ai/config.json`; generated by
  `skills/everything/scripts/build_brief.py`.
- **Gap marker** - the exact line `_Unknown - ask the owner and record the
  answer._`, used in place of a guess so an unknown fact can be counted and
  asked rather than papered over; see `docs/adr/0010-every-prompt-documented-living-wiki.md`.
- **Living wiki** - the repository as its own wiki: one canonical home per
  kind of knowledge, generated facts plus curated why, gaps marked honestly;
  home is `docs/wiki/index.md`, built by
  `skills/everything/scripts/akinator_wiki.py`.
- **Boardroom lens** - one of the seven review subagents in `agents/` (e.g.
  `akinator-librarian`), each with a real veto over a batch; see
  `docs/agents.md`.
- **Librarian** - `agents/akinator-librarian.md`, the boardroom lens that runs
  on every batch without exception and blocks it if the declared knowledge
  delta is missing, misplaced or untrue; see `docs/agents.md`.
- **Gate economy** - running the mechanical checks once, at the end of a
  batch, scoped to what changed, instead of mid-batch on every edit; see
  `rules/06-gate-once-scoped-at-the-end.md`.
- **Adopt-never-impose** - when a repository already has a home for a kind of
  knowledge, the wiki links to it instead of creating a parallel one; the
  wiki's `Home` column in `docs/wiki/index.md` marks these `(adopted)`.
- **Vendored artifact** - a file installed from elsewhere (not generated
  locally) that declares its origin and how to refresh it instead of naming a
  local generator; see `docs/adr/0007-vendored-artifacts-declare-origin-not-generator.md`
  and `rules/12-artifacts-that-travel-name-nothing-local.md`.