Glossary

The system's terms, defined once and used consistently everywhere — docs, boards, and these pages.

The work

How it is divided, and who does it

Phase

the work unit: any chunk of work run through the rituals, in exactly one mode. Opens as a board, closes by distill + delete.

Mode

a phase's flavor. The mode sets the ritual's focus, the board's template, the orient set, and the touch bands; how heavy a phase runs is its board's Levels line — one level per kind. A board's mode: names one:

product: builds the thing.
system: tends the rules.
side: sweeps the small stuff.
queue-shaping: shapes what's next.

Kind

the shape of one session: what it reads, what it does, what it leaves behind, and the level it runs at, with its own open and close. A phase is a board passing through kinds in order, and the mode sets the sequence (§ The phase pipeline). Earned by recurrence, never declared for symmetry — the test lives in § Adjustments, each kind's opening line in § Session starters. The kinds, by the mode that runs them:

open: opens a phase: verifies the seed, agrees scope, writes the board.
build: builds a standalone phase and hosts its walkthrough.
basic layer: builds the first pass of every surface in a run, and stops at basic.
survey: walks a whole run with the PO, building nothing.
deepen: makes one settled surface good.
close: reads the phase cold from its documents and runs the close, always in a fresh chat.
sweep: a side phase working several tracker items.
research: a side phase whose deliverable is understanding, landed as a doc.
upgrade: a system phase taking in the template's changes, in a project built from it (§ The upgrade kind).

Stage

the kind a board currently sits at, declared in its stage: frontmatter and advanced by each kind's close. What a session reads first when it picks a board up.

Level

the capability a chat runs at, fixed at chat open and never changed mid-chat. Named in the project's own tier words, never as a model — the tier→model mapping lives in the project's briefing file. A board's Levels line names one per kind, and that splits the phase, a chat per kind; a board without one is collapsed, its whole arc one chat.

Session

one chat, holding one capability level fixed at open and serving one board-kind: a split board's single kind, or a collapsed board's whole arc (§ The phase pipeline). Never two boards. A phase survives a force-ended chat, and a fresh session picking its board back up is continuation, not error-recovery. Names itself when its title is known — Phase name · mode collapsed, kind · Phase name · mode in a split phase — with each title recorded on the board.

Seam

where a split phase changes chats: one kind's close, then the next kind's open. The outgoing chat commits the board, sets it waiting, advances stage:, pushes, and hands over the next kind's opening line, so crossing one takes a sentence. A collapsed board runs its kinds in one chat and has none (§ The phase pipeline).

Run

many small product boards moving through the kinds together inside a stated bound, each naming the run in run:, plus a run board holding the thesis of the whole, Considered, the shown/launch/later table and the member list, and linking its picture (planning/<run>-picture.md: the loop, the aspirational site map, who owns which parts — reconciled against /system/site at the close, then deleted). Clear a kind across the run before advancing, by default. Shaped by queue-shaping; see § The phase pipeline.

Kickoff

the one-time bootstrap that runs before the mode loop: it writes the strategy shelf (rather than orienting against it) and opens all ground because it's creating everything. Not a mode — the ignition. See § The Kickoff.

Queue-shaping

the fourth mode: the phase that captures an idea and its context as a row + seed — adding, splitting, reordering or dropping queue rows when no phase's own open or close is doing it. A two-tier orient, one chat that never splits, done with the PO. See § The queue-shaping phase.

the product owner: the human the work is done with and for. Every close ritual hands off to the PO; walkthroughs are driven by the PO. In a solo project, that's you wearing the reviewer hat.

The documents

Where it is written down

Board

a phase's worklist and running record while open, in phases/, created from its mode's template. Scale varies by mode: product boards are heavy (workstreams + a walkthrough sibling); side boards are light (the tracker items pulled in); system boards fit the friction; queue-shaping boards are a few lines. Every mold carries ## Raised whatever the scale — the section other boards write their finds into. Always tier: working while open; distilled and deleted at close — product phases leave a compact record. Its status: is one of these, and one board is active per mode:

active: a session is working it.
waiting: it cleared its kind and waits for the next.
paused: it stopped mid-kind with nobody on it, its stage: set back to the unfinished kind. It holds no slot.

Raised

a find about a surface another open board owns, written into that board's ## Raised section: what was found or changed, where, which board found it and when, and what the receiving session owes (judge · verify · nothing, FYI). Any mode may write one, because a note is not that board's work — and a note is never an item: the receiving session drains the section at its open, authors its own O or V item where a ruling or a check is owed, and deletes the entry. Crossing re-authors, which is how the receiver takes ownership. Undrained entries hold the close; a closed board has no section, so that find goes to a tracker row or the queue (§ Rules shared by all modes).

Seed

a queued phase's accumulation space, one file in planning/queued/ for any mode: a pitch, dated notes, what is settled and what is still open, candidate scope, refs — never tasks. Folds into the board at phase open and is deleted.

Queue

the ROADMAP's What's Next: upcoming planned work of any mode, one mode-tagged list, every row carrying a seed. A staging area, not a gate. Each phase maintains its own row: removed at open, written as the work names it or at close.

Walkthrough

a collaborative review doc: "Open for your call" (O) + "Worth verifying" (V) points, passed one by one with the PO before the phase can close. Every product and system phase runs one. Only the agent's own calls become O items, and a resolved one leaves the list for the Decisions log — so the list shows what still needs the PO, never what already got their answer. A working surface: consumed at close and deleted with the board, never archived.

Mold

a template a doc is cut from, its filename led by _: a board mold per mode, and one each for the walkthrough, the seed and a run's picture. A new doc inherits its mold's sections, so a change to a mold reaches every doc cut after it (§ Adjustments), and each mold explains its own use in one card at its top (§ A mold explains itself in one card).

Tracker

one of the standing lists holding candidates — quick, lean task notes waiting between phases. Phases pull items at open (a side phase usually pulls several — a sweep) and move the rows at close. Each holds one stance:

punch list: known small fixes, 30 minutes or less (P##).
Open Questions log: unanswered questions blocking future work (§N).
Future Considerations: known directions, trigger pending (FC##).

The rules

When steps run, and what may change

Ritual

a named set of steps bound to a trigger: a mode's opening steps (orient + touch-check included), during-rules, and closing steps — and not phase-only: session start, session end, and push run rituals too (§ The parts). No phase is ritual-free.

Trigger

the moment a ritual fires. Bind a ritual to a trigger by writing its steps where the person acting on it will read them (§ The parts). A Future Consideration's trigger is the word's other sense: the event that promotes it out of its tracker (§ The Planning Trackers). The ritual moments, each with what it fires:

phase open: the mode's opening ritual.
phase close: the mode's closing ritual.
session start: reading the briefing, which is that ritual.
session end: committing and pushing the open board.
push: the publish.
kickoff: the run-once bootstrap.

Touch bands

a mode's editing tiers. Bands gate pens, not eyes: reading is never gated. Each mode maps its docs onto them:

home ground: edit freely, per the board.
careful: update deliberately when the work bears on it, never in passing.
gated: another mode's ground: suggest, don't edit.

Canon diff

the ratification gate at every close: before its board is deleted, a phase walks the PO through every change it made to bedrock- and commitments-tier docs (CLAUDE.md included). Runs inside the system and side phases' verification handoff and as its own step before the product phase's distill-and-delete.

Tier

how guarded a doc is: what it takes to change it. Docs sink toward bedrock by surviving; reopening a settled one takes a structured challenge.

bedrock: the settled vision. Changed only by a structured challenge.
commitments: strategy, references, feature docs, the rules and the ROADMAP. Changing one is a decision.
working: boards, docs mid-revision and the trackers. Changed freely.

The law

"derived, never authored": every /system page renders from the docs at build time. To change a page, change its source doc; if they disagree, the docs win.

Source: CONTRIBUTING.md → Glossary