Agent. A model that calls tools and continues until a stop condition. Not a synonym for “chatbot.”
Ambient. Suggestions from context the system can see. Low blast radius if designed well. Not automatically an agent.
Acceptance test. A check that can fail. If it cannot fail, it is not a test.
Compiled spec. Instructions generated from a pack (brief, files, examples, non-goals). What people mean by a serious “super prompt.”
Context pack. The bundle of inputs for a job, treated as an artifact.
Computer use. Agents that click UIs. High demo value, high fragility.
Eval. Evidence the run met the spec.
Human in the loop. A required confirmation on irreversible or high-blast steps.
Loop. Plan → act → critique → retry or stop.
Mode error. Using chat, workflow, or agent for the wrong job.
One-shot. A single generate with no critique cycle.
Side effect. Anything that changes the world outside the chat transcript.
Stop condition. A named reason to halt (tests pass, budget hit, blocked, out of spec).
Super prompt. Marketing speak. See compiled spec.
Trace. Visible record of tools, paths, and arguments.
Workflow. A saved sequence that produces a repeatable artifact without necessarily taking unsupervised actions.
Window. Tokens in this call. Not long-term memory.