| Action skill | Any skill that is not read-only. It must end with ## Stop point and ## Never, even when, like bug-triage, deploy-checklist and client-reply, it writes nothing itself. |
| Read-only skill | A skill exempt from the ## Stop point/## Never check (read_only in scripts/check.sh): brain-search, code-review, plan-status, skill-usage and the *-conventions skills. It changes nothing and proposes no action. |
| Conventions skill | A *-conventions skill with stack- or file-specific rules, loaded only when its description matches the work. |
| Core rules | plugin/rules/core.md, printed into every session by the SessionStart hook. |
| Brain, vault | The user's Obsidian vault of Markdown notes, the agent's long-term memory. |
Brain vault: line | Brain vault: <absolute path> in a CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md; how skills find the vault. |
| Inbox note | A note an agent created in _inbox/ with status: inbox; unreviewed, a draft rather than a fact. |
| Promote | Move an approved inbox note to a topic folder and set status: active (brain-review). |
| Archive | Move a note to _archive/ with status: archived. The plugin's replacement for deletion. |
| Compiled note | A brain-compile note synthesized from at least two active notes, with a sources: list and the compiled tag. |
| Stale note | An active note whose updated is more than 180 days old. |
| Orphan | A note outside _inbox/ and _archive/ that no wiki link targets. |
| FOUND / GUESSED | brain-garden's tag on a proposed link: stated in both notes, or inferred. "Apply all" covers only FOUND. |
| Vault project slug | The project: value for a repository's notes, recorded in its _Context.md. |
| P0–P3 | The single severity scale: P0 exploitable security defect, data loss or production down; P1 wrong behavior on a common path; P2 edge case or meaningful maintainability risk; P3 minor. |
| Verdict | APPROVE, COMMENT (an open question decides P0/P1) or REQUEST_CHANGES (an open P0/P1). |
| Fresh verifier | An agent that did not produce a P0/P1 finding and sees only the claim, asked to disprove it. Codex when installed, otherwise the read-only verifier agent, which is also the only choice for an untrusted head. |
| Disputed | A finding the verifier refuted; listed with evidence, does not block the verdict or enter the backlog. |
| Fast check | Lint, types and tests of the changed area, run before every commit. |
| Full suite | The project's complete validation, run once before a push or PR. |
| Status block | The closing Done / Not done / Needs you block the core rules require. |
| Backlog | The todo and done files named by the Backlog: line (default TODO.md, TODO-done.md), with P0–P3 sections and implementation sessions. |
BASE-NN | A backlog item ID created by project-baseline. |
| Item ID | A backlog item's category prefix and number (SEC-03), unique across the todo and done files. |
| Done when | A backlog item's acceptance criterion; never edited, only amended by an appended dated line. |
| Check | A backlog item's command that fails while its Done when does not hold. |
| Owner | The worktree an item was dispatched to, with the date; written only by implement-backlog. |
| Ready / waiting / claimed / orphaned | An open backlog item's one bucket, checked orphaned, waiting, claimed, ready: no open blocker and no owner / an open Blocked by / an owner of 7 days or less / an owner older than 7 days. |
| Final status | The first line of every agent report: DONE, REVIEW, BLOCKED (with an unblock owner) or CONTINUING. |
| Evidence checked | The files read and commands run that a reviewer lists under an APPROVE with no P0–P2. |
| State card | The task state the SessionStart hook prints after a compaction or resume, from docs/plans/.devos-state.md and git. |
| Surface | The public names in plugin/SURFACE.txt: skills, agents, output styles, hook events and scripts. |
| Active plan | The most recently updated plan in the planning location whose task is not done. |
| Nudge | The Stop hook's one-time request to run session-retro after 30 tool calls. |
| Routine | A Claude Code cloud session on a schedule or API trigger; used optionally for phone capture and a weekly vault brief. |
| Eval, Δ | A claude plugin eval case; Δ is the with-plugin score minus the baseline score. |