Glossary - Voss Docs

Term	Meaning
capability	A single tool in the agent toolbelt (e.g. `fs_edit`, `shell_run`) — the unit of what an agent can do. See Capabilities.
role	A declared specialist (e.g. `backend`, `reviewer`) with its own scope, budget, and tool subset, expressed in `.voss team{}`.
agent	A single bounded run of the model-driven turn loop, with a toolbelt, memory, and budget.
subagent	A child agent spawned by a parent for a delegated, bounded task, returning its result to the parent.
EM	Engineering Manager loop — the orchestrator that decomposes work into cards, assigns roles, partitions budget, and integrates results.
card	A scoped unit of work the EM creates and assigns to a role, carrying its own budget and permission envelope. Backed by a session-tree node.
board	The work-tracking surface holding cards and their column/gate state.
gate	A blocking predicate a card must clear (e.g. review passed, tests green) before it advances.
verifier	An automated check (tests, evals) that produces the pass/fail evidence a gate requires.
reviewer	An independent agent, distinct from the worker, that critiques a card before it is accepted.
session tree	The tree of durable nodes — one per agent — carrying budget, scope, status, and transitions.
audit	The replayable record of a run: RunFinal records, review sidecars, and session-tree nodes.
principle	A first-class engineering-culture statement injected into every agent context.
ceiling	The global budget + scope envelope a team declares; no role may exceed it.
swarm	A live multi-agent run through `voss serve`: a coordinator splits the goal into tasks with owned files, builders (native, Claude Code, or Codex) work in separate worktrees, and a reviewer checks candidates.
candidate	A swarm task’s retained work, ready for review. Candidate-ready means review pending, not merged or accepted.
judgment	An explicit, opt-in Jev request that returns a probability distribution and a content-free receipt.
requirement assessment	Jev’s advisory per-criterion answer (supported, contradicted, unclear, no answer). It never approves, blocks, or moves work.
task journal	The SQLite record of task state and events that `voss serve` clients replay by cursor.