docs/GLOSSARY.md

# Glossary

## Agent

An AI coding collaborator operating inside the repository.

## Harness

The repo-level operating system that tells humans and agents how to turn intent
into safe product changes.

## Product Contract

The current expected behavior of the product. Product docs plus executable tests
become the living contract once implementation exists.

## Story Packet

A story-sized work file or folder that describes the product contract, affected
docs, design notes, and validation expectations for a feature.

## Feature Intake

The classification step that turns a prompt into tiny, normal, or high-risk
work before implementation begins.

## Component Taxonomy

A map from Harness files and capabilities to the responsibilities they serve,
used to evaluate coverage, attribute failures, and identify missing harness
capabilities.

## Maturity Level

A verifiable stage in Harness capability, from H0 bare environment through H5
self-improving harness. Each level has required files, criteria, and benchmark
indicators.

## Trace Quality Tier

The expected depth of a task trace: minimal for tiny work, standard for normal
work, and detailed for high-risk work.

## Verification Gate

An advisory Harness check that runs or inspects mechanical proof before a task
is closed. In Phase 4, `story verify <id>` executes a story's `verify_command`,
`story verify-all` runs all configured story proof commands, and
`trace --story <id>` warns when that story's verification has not passed.

## Tool Registry

The compiled and registered tool manifest exposed by
`scripts/bin/harness-cli query tools`. It lets agents discover available
commands, arguments, responsibilities, and custom project tools.

## Intervention

A durable record of human, reviewer, CI, or agent feedback that corrected,
overrode, escalated, or approved work. Interventions are stored separately from
traces and feed improvement proposals.

## Context Score

The advisory result from `scripts/bin/harness-cli score-context <trace-id>`.
It compares a trace's recorded `files_read` against compiled context rules and
retrieval triggers.

## Entropy Score

The drift score printed by `scripts/bin/harness-cli audit`. Lower is better.
It counts stale or incomplete durable records such as orphaned stories,
unverified proof commands, missing backlog outcomes, and broken registered
tools.

## Improvement Proposal

A structured recommendation generated by `scripts/bin/harness-cli propose` from
repeated friction, intervention patterns, and audit findings. Proposals are
advisory unless committed to the backlog with `--commit`.

## Context Phase

A phase of an agent task that changes what context should be read, such as
intake, planning, implementation, validation, or trace recording.

## Retrieval Trigger

A condition that tells an agent to fetch additional context, such as touching a
database schema, changing a public contract, or discovering missing validation.

## Harness Delta

A documentation, template, validation, backlog, or decision update that makes
future agent work safer or easier.

## Backlog Outcome Loop

The feedback workflow for Harness improvements: record predicted impact when a
backlog item is created, then record actual measured outcome when the item is
closed so future agents can compare expectation with result.

## Durable Layer

The SQLite database and CLI (`scripts/bin/harness-cli`) that stores operational records
(intakes, stories, decisions, backlog items, traces) as structured, queryable
data. Policy docs describe how to work; the durable layer stores what happened.

## Product Delta

A product-facing change such as code, tests, API shape, data model, or product
documentation.

## Trace

A structured record of what an agent did during a task: actions taken, files
read, files changed, decisions made, errors encountered, outcome, and any
harness friction discovered.

## Tool Registry

The compiled and user-registered tool manifest exposed by
`scripts/bin/harness-cli query tools` and documented in `docs/TOOL_REGISTRY.md`.

## Intervention

A durable record of a human, reviewer, CI, or agent correction, override,
escalation, or approval that is separate from the normal task trace.

## Context Score

The advisory result from `scripts/bin/harness-cli score-context <trace-id>`,
which compares a trace's recorded reads against compiled context rules.

## Entropy Score

The drift score from `scripts/bin/harness-cli audit`. Lower scores mean fewer
orphaned, stale, unverified, outcome-missing, or broken-tool records.

## Improvement Proposal

A structured proposal generated by `scripts/bin/harness-cli propose` from
repeated friction, interventions, and audit drift. Proposals can be committed as
backlog items with `--commit`.