--- title: "Glossary" description: "Every Cerevisor-specific term defined once. If you see a word in another doc and don't know what it means, it's defined here." slug: reference/glossary section: reference canonical_url: https://cerevisor.com/docs/reference/glossary last_verified: 2026-05-18 last_verified_version: "1.2.0" updated_at: 2026-05-18T15:08:18.053416+00:00 --- Terms are listed alphabetically. Cross-references use *italics*. ### Agent A configured worker that does one piece of a workflow. An agent has a *role*, a set of *skills*, an *output definition*, instructions, and a *provider* + model. Agents run in *waves* and pass output to each other through *connections*. ### Agent Palette The left-edge dock from which you drag agent role cards onto the canvas. ### AgentSA Slice 2 of [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/overview.md). The harness's awareness of its own agents' recent uncertainty snapshots by role, the patterns it currently believes hold (with belief-source attribution), and the open blind spots it's tracking. ### Approval Gate A *connection* type that pauses the workflow when it's reached, requiring you to approve or reject before downstream agents run. ### Audit log An NDJSON file under `~/.cerevisor/audit-logs/` recording every tool call, permission decision, and event in a run. One file per session. ### Canvas The main editing surface where you place and connect agents. ### Chat Builder (AI Chat Builder) The floating chat window (open with Ctrl/Cmd+L) where you describe a workflow in natural language and Cerevisor creates or edits agents for you. ### Claude Agent SDK One of the six *provider* types. Anthropic's official agent SDK (the same harness that powers Claude Code) running in-process. Delegated loop: Cerevisor sets sandbox + approval policy up-front, then hands the entire agent run to the SDK. Authenticates with an Anthropic API key stored in a dedicated keychain slot. See [Claude Agent SDK provider](../guides/providers/claude-agent-sdk.md). ### Codex CLI OpenAI's command-line tool (`@openai/codex`). One of the six *provider* types Cerevisor supports. Authenticates against a ChatGPT subscription via device-auth. ### Column A vertical lane on the canvas representing one *wave* of execution. All agents in a column run in parallel. ### Connection A directed edge from one agent to another representing data handoff. Connection types: Always, Conditional, Approval Gate, Loop. ### Control Group A saved selection of agents you can recall instantly with Ctrl+Shift+1..9. Like RTS unit groups. ### Cross-workflow link A connection between agents in two different workflows on the same World View. Configured via the Cross-Workflow Link modal. ### Cursor Agent One of the six *provider* types. Uses the in-process Cursor SDK; supports local and cloud execution. Delegated loop. ### Cursor cloud run A workflow run that executes on Cursor's cloud infrastructure rather than your local machine. Survives Cerevisor restarts via the *cloud-run tracker*. ### Custom agent An agent built from the Custom role, or a *template* saved by you. Reusable across workflows. ### Default provider The provider in your library marked as default. Used by new workflows and any agent without an explicit override. ### Draft (auto-save) In-memory state saved every 30 seconds to a hidden file. Survives a crash; offered on next launch. ### Embedded App A native desktop application (Outlook, Excel, etc.) embedded as a node on the Cerevisor canvas. Windows only. ### Execution Modal The popup showing live status of a workflow run. ### Failure Report A structured summary of what went wrong in a run. Drives Loop & Enhance's decision to re-plan. ### File intelligence Harness-level scheduling logic that uses each agent's declared `inputFiles[]` and `outputFiles[]` to detect dependencies, avoid write conflicts, and inform wave scheduling, without injecting file content into agent context. ### Flow type One of four behaviors a *connection* can have: Always, Conditional, Approval Gate, Loop. ### Gemini One of the six *provider* types. Google's Gemini API (2.5 and 3.x families) accessed via the `@google/genai` SDK. Cerevisor owns the agent loop. Handles >200K-token tier pricing automatically and folds thinking tokens into the output billing total. See [Gemini provider](../guides/providers/gemini.md). ### Handoff format How an agent's output is packaged before the downstream agent reads it. Options: Summary, Structured JSON, File Reference, Full Output. ### Harness The orchestrator runtime that drives agents, manages waves, dispatches tool calls, enforces permissions, runs the agentic loop. ### Harness self-memory The harness's persisted retrospective on its own runs, per-role metrics, learned tips, corrections. Stored under `~/.cerevisor/memory/harness/`. ### Lemon Squeezy The payment provider used for Cerevisor licenses. Singletons gate certain features (workflow caps, Loop & Enhance, MCP, cloud). ### Loop (connection type) A connection that re-runs the source agent until an exit condition is met or `maxIterations` is reached. ### Loop & Enhance A round-loop system that wraps a workflow run in detect-fix-rerun cycles. After each round, the harness analyzes failure, proposes workflow edits via an LLM, applies them, and runs again. ### loop_fixation_warning An orchestrator event emitted by [Loop & Enhance](../guides/advanced/loop-and-enhance.md) when two consecutive rounds produce the same FailureReport fingerprint (the planner isn't making progress). Consumed by the [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/configure-and-run.md#fixation-warnings) renderer to flip the run's state label to `fixation-risk` and surface a warning in the SA panel. ### MCP (Model Context Protocol) An open protocol for tool/context servers. Cerevisor is an MCP **client**; you can connect any MCP server (e.g. filesystem-mcp, github-mcp) and its tools become available to your agents. ### Memory subsystem Persistent storage under `~/.cerevisor/memory/` covering user profile, harness self-memory, meta-cognition observations, disagreements, freeform entries, and version snapshots. ### Meta-cognition The harness's diff-over-time analysis of its own retrospectives, producing observations like "role X has been failing more often lately" and an enduring self-portrait. ### Native mode (Structured Orchestration) A workflow setting that enriches the generated prompt with subagent types, tool scoping, and model hints. Independent of which provider executes the run. ### Output definition The contract for what an agent's output should look like. Drives validation, the agent output gate, and downstream context injection. ### Output Verifier An LLM-as-judge pass over an agent's output to check it matches its output definition. ### Pipeline A chained run of multiple workflows. Configure via the Pipeline modal. ### Placement mode A canvas state where your cursor becomes a ghost of an agent about to be placed. Entered by pressing 0–9 or dragging from the palette. ### Provider A backend that runs your agents. Six types are supported: Anthropic, Gemini, Claude Agent SDK, OpenAI-compatible endpoint (Ollama, OpenRouter, etc.), OpenAI Codex CLI, and Cursor Agent. Three of those (Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI-compatible) are *Cerevisor-loop providers* where Cerevisor owns the agent loop; the other three are *delegated-loop providers* where the upstream runtime owns the loop. See [Provider overview](../guides/providers/overview.md). ### Provider Library The collection of all configured providers. One is marked as the *default*. ### Provider override (per-agent) Setting a specific provider on a single agent, overriding the workflow's default. ### Role The starting profile for an agent, Researcher, Architect, Developer, etc. Sets smart defaults for subagent type, model preference, and accent color. ### Run finalization End-of-run cleanup: persists the session, fires retrospectives, updates harness memory, writes meta-cognition observations. ### SA Directive The always-on situational-awareness framing appended to every agent's system prompt (alongside the *Wow Directive*). Toggle and edit text live at Settings -> Workflow. Independent of the Wow Directive: Wow asks "is this output worth showing off?"; SA asks "does this output honestly surface what the agent doesn't know?". See [SA configure and run](../guides/situational-awareness/configure-and-run.md#the-sa-directive). ### SAStateLabel The coarse discrete label summarizing the harness's [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/overview.md) posture for a run. One of: `baseline`, `high-confidence-known-domain`, `low-confidence-new-domain`, `fixation-risk`, `context-stale`, `unknown`. ### Scheduled run A workflow configured to run automatically on a cron schedule. Configured via the Schedule Config popup; managed under Settings → Automation. ### situation_reporter One of the 17 built-in *roles*. Composes a structured handoff (default output file `wave-situation.md`) after a wave completes, so downstream waves inherit one canonical read of what's done, what's missing, and what's still unknown. Defaults: subagent type `plan`, model `sonnet`. Pairs with the [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/) pillar. ### Situational Awareness (SA pillar) Cerevisor's continuously-updated, three-level picture of a workflow run, composed from memory + orchestrator + persistence signals into typed snapshots. Three slices: *TaskworkSA*, *AgentSA*, *TeamworkSA*. Surfaced as state labels, uncertainty badges, and per-wave reports. See [Situational Awareness overview](../guides/situational-awareness/overview.md). ### Skill A reusable, focused capability. Lives as a folder containing a `SKILL.md` plus optional helper scripts. Cerevisor merges `~/.claude/skills/` and `~/.cerevisor/skills/` on launch. ### Skill compatibility (provider compatibility) Whether a skill works with a given provider. The `skill-preflight` gate checks this before any wave runs. ### Skill Workshop The in-app editor for creating, editing, and managing skills. Switch to it from the title bar. ### Subagent type One of four execution modes: `explore` (read-only), `plan` (planning), `bash` (shell), `general-purpose` (full toolset). ### TaskworkSA Slice 1 of [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/overview.md). The harness's awareness of the task itself: what changed since the user last interacted (the `sinceLastSession` delta), which sibling workflows in the workspace have been touched recently, and the current workflow's identity. ### TeamworkSA Slice 3 of [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/overview.md). The harness's awareness of the working relationship: open disagreements (where the user's claim and the harness's observation diverge), and the current chat-builder session's accumulator of accepted / rejected / clarified items. ### Telemetry The product is **no-telemetry by default**. Nothing leaves your device unless you explicitly opted into a feature that requires network access (a provider's API, a web-search backend, an MCP server you added). ### Template A reusable starting point; either a workflow template (on the Home Screen) or an agent template (Custom Agents). ### Trust Profile A user-chosen risk appetite (Cautious / Standard / Trusted Developer) that controls how often the permission system prompts vs. auto-approves. ### UncertaintySnapshot A bundled per-agent-run uncertainty signal composed from the agent's self-reported confidence marker (if any), the semantic verifier's verdict, and the missing-marker signal. Mirrored in the renderer and shown as the per-agent uncertainty badge in [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/configure-and-run.md#the-per-agent-uncertainty-badge). ### Wave A column on the canvas. Agents in the same wave run in parallel. Later waves wait for earlier ones to finish. ### WaveSituationReport A structured report assembled by the [Situational Awareness](../guides/situational-awareness/configure-and-run.md#the-wave-situation-report) pillar after each wave completes. Lists per-agent status + uncertainty, files produced this wave, files the wave was expected to produce but didn't, and free-form notes. Injected into the next wave's downstream agents as a `contextNotes` segment so the harness's SA carries forward across waves. ### Workflow A single document containing agents, columns, connections, and settings. Saved as a `.cerevisor` (or `.opaal`) file. ### Workspace A multi-workflow document containing N workflows arranged on the World View. Saved as a `.cerevisor-world` file. ### World View The multi-workflow canvas where each workflow appears as a framed area. Add cross-workflow links, see all your work at once. ### Wow Directive A global quality bar appended to every prompt and injected into every agent's system message. Editable in Settings → Workflow.