The vocabulary
Every word, defined once.
Knowing what a team calls things is most of what it means to be inside it. These are the words, with the plain-English word next to each so nobody has to pretend.
This page is generated from docs/glossary.yml in the StellarView repository.
That file is not a document, it is a runtime asset: the application reads it for the
glossary strip, the prompts read it so the model does not invent meanings, and a check
fails the build when a first-contact screen uses one of these words undefined. Which means
this page and the product cannot drift.
57 terms · 47 in use · 10 marked for retirement · 10 with a clip · glossary version 1, updated 2026-08-27
Tier 1 · 4
Taught in the first sixty seconds
You cannot do anything at all without these four, so they are taught on the first screen and nothing is allowed to assume them.
- Gap A question the plan cannot answer on its own
-
Something the work needs decided that the document did not say, listed rather than guessed at.
From the file
ADDED 2026-08-28, and it should have been here first. Three separate reviews called this the strongest idea in the product and all three noticed it had no entry while Wormhole did. It is the load-bearing concept of the flagship docs page and the trust argument of the film, and the lint that checks for undefined product nouns could not see it, because it was never defined. Most tools fill the silence with a guess and the guess reads exactly like a decision. A gap you have not answered will not silently become a decision somebody else made for you.
- Galaxy Repository or project
-
A repository with its configuration, credentials, analysis state and history, held as one thing.
also called Active Galaxy
Watch it — 44 seconds
The practice underneath A working set. Everything needed to work on a codebase kept together, rather than scattered across a README, a password manager and somebody’s memory.
From the file
2,487 occurrences in the UI HTML, and the single most common word a new person meets with no idea what it means. Earn it: show the codebase draw itself, then name the result.
- Big Bang Where an epic is built
-
The screen that turns a document or a description into phases, work units, gaps and an architecture diagram per phase.
also called Big Bang Creator, Epic Creator
Watch it — 42 seconds
The practice underneath Planning from a requirement instead of from a backlog. The decomposition happens before anyone writes code, and it is written down where it can be argued with.
From the file
The centrepiece. Everything else in the product feeds this screen or consumes what comes out of it, so it belongs in the first minute in a way the rings do not. One plate of it carries twelve phases, seventy work units, five hundred and sixty hours, two hundred and ten resolved gaps, the SOW allocation, JIRA, meeting intel and the gap suggestions at once.
- Epic A body of work, broken down
-
A feature large enough to need decomposing into phases and work units before anyone writes code.
also called Epic Creation, Epic Decomposition
Watch it — 37 seconds
The practice underneath Decomposition. Split the work until each piece is small enough to estimate honestly and small enough to review in one sitting.
Tier 2 · 19
Taught on arrival
Real concepts, but only when you reach the feature. Teaching these on the first screen turns a start page into a lesson.
- Layer Architectural tier
-
The five-tier model every file is placed into — Core, Services, APIs, UI, Infrastructure.
- Mission An automated workflow
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An orchestrated run with named phases, prompt templates, and a full record of what the AI was asked and answered.
- Constellation Epic One epic delivered across several repositories
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A single body of work planned and executed across several repositories at once, with the seams between them resolved deliberately.
also called Constellation
Watch it — 43 seconds
The practice underneath Cross-repository release coordination. The hard part of multi-repo work is never the code in any one repo, it is the order and the contracts between them.
From the file
CORRECTED 2026-08-27. Both previous glossaries said "files grouped by architectural layer", which describes the 3D view, not this. The delivery meaning is what the code means: backend/constellation/ holds RepoSetSuggester, ResponsibilityMapper and SeamResolver; ConstellationMiracleRunner executes it; /api/staging/constellations lists them. Cicero Gen2 was 3 repos, 17 phases, 162 work units, 8 execution waves. That is a Constellation Epic. Say the full two words. "Constellation" alone is what caused the collision.
- Work Unit A single implementable task
-
The smallest piece of an epic that one person can pick up, with its own acceptance criteria.
also called WU
- Smart Prompt A reusable AI prompt template
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A prompt held as a file with variables, inheritance and versioning, so behaviour can be changed without touching code.
- HAL The prompt template editor
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Where every Smart Prompt is read and edited, in a real editor rather than buried in source.
- AI Companion The assistant panel
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The panel you ask things of, which already knows the galaxy, the file and the screen you are on.
also called Companion
- Skill A packaged capability for Claude Code
-
A folder of instructions and resources that teaches an assistant how to do one job properly.
also called Skill Builder, Skill Manager
Watch it — 36 seconds
The practice underneath The runbook. A procedure written down well enough that the person who did not invent it can run it correctly at three in the morning.
- Vibe Generate a working project from a description
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Describe what you want and get a real repository that builds and runs, not a snippet.
also called Vibe Creator
Watch it — 44 seconds
The practice underneath The spike. Build the throwaway to learn the shape, then decide whether the real one is worth building. The mistake is keeping the spike.
- Fleet The cloud instances you run
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Every StellarView instance your team has running, and the controls to start, stop and hand them over.
also called StellarFleet, Fleet Manager
Watch it — 43 seconds
The practice underneath Environment management. Knowing what is deployed where, who it belongs to, and which one you are about to break.
- Ghost A teammate's cloud dev environment
-
A full StellarView running in the cloud for one person, with their own credentials, behind their own login.
Watch it — 44 seconds
The practice underneath The development environment that is not a laptop. It is the step everything in the demo economy skips, and it is the step that decides whether the work survives the person who did it.
- Replicant Your own setup, running in the cloud
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A cloud instance carrying your galaxy state, so it can carry on as you rather than as a stranger.
- Walkthrough A recorded or live demonstration
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Ask for something and it is shown to you — either a film that exists, or performed live on your own instance.
Watch it — 43 seconds
The practice underneath The review at the end of an increment. Show the work running. Describing it is not the same act and everyone in the room knows it.
- Walkthrough Rudiment A very short film that shows one thing
-
Thirty to forty-five seconds showing a single action, or defining a single term, on a running system.
also called Rudiment
From the file
Named for the drum rudiment — the small figure you drill until it is automatic, and out of which everything longer is built. A rudiment runs show, name, stop. Three or four beats, no build, no brand intro. Anything needing a fifth beat is a film and belongs in walkthroughs/lessons/. The glossary is largely made of these: a Ring does not get a paragraph, it gets thirty-five seconds of the actual rings.
- Analysis Mission Requirements → design → test plan
-
The workflow that turns an issue into a root cause, a design and a test plan before any code is written.
- Execution Mission Code generation through to pull request
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The workflow that takes an approved design and produces a branch, the implementation and a pull request.
- Creation Mission Turn a rough idea into a written issue
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The workflow that takes a sentence or a voice note and produces a properly specified GitHub issue.
- Away Mission Run it on a remote machine instead
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The same mission, executed on a cloud instance rather than your laptop, with results syncing back.
- Miracle Build one repository end to end
-
A full automated build of a single repository, from plan through implementation to pull requests.
Tier 3 · 24
Reference only
Looked up, never taught.
- Ring Layer of the architecture, drawn
-
One of five concentric circles in the 3D view, where a file sits by the job it does rather than the folder it is in.
Watch it — 42 seconds
The practice underneath Architectural layering. Core, services, APIs, UI, infrastructure. Drawing a system by responsibility is how you find the file that is in the wrong place.
From the file
DEMOTED from tier 1 on 2026-08-28. Not because they are hard to reach — the JOEY button in the top bar calls morphToJoey(), which dismisses the workspace and warps back to them in one click, and any probe can trigger it by posting ws-show-rings. They are one click away. They are demoted because nobody navigates THROUGH them. They are a view you open, look at, and leave; the work happens in Big Bang and the epics. A word for a place you visit is not a word a new person needs in their first minute. What would earn tier 1 back: if the rings come to carry live SDLC state, run efficiency, logs and alerts, they stop being a view and become an operating surface. That is the stated intent and it would reverse this.
- Local Cluster A group of related files on one ring
-
Files on the same ring that belong together, shown as one group when you open a layer.
From the file
This is the OLD meaning of Constellation and it is still live in the code — showConstellationModal(name, layerIndex, memberIds) in frontend/stellarview-real.html reads graphData.layers and graphData.nodes. Two live meanings for one word is not a glossary problem, it is a naming problem. "Local" is doing real work here: the grouping is local to one repository and one ring, which is exactly what a Constellation Epic is not. The rename is NOT yet applied to the code.
- First Light The first complete end-to-end run
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The moment a build runs the whole way through for the first time and produces something real.
- Commission Merge and close out the work
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The close-out pass that merges the stacked pull requests, retargets what is left, and leaves the repository clean.
- Shakedown Find what the build missed
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The pass after commissioning that looks for gaps and turns them into an enhancement epic.
- Cascade Changes flow downstream
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Editing one section automatically updates the sections and work units that depend on it.
- Refinement Rewrite a section by talking to it
-
Chat-based editing that re-runs the underlying prompt with your correction folded in.
- Bridge The link to Claude Code
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A local WebSocket connection that lets the visual side and the command line side share context.
- Bundle An exported snapshot
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A galaxy's configuration, credentials and state packaged so it can be moved or restored.
- Blueprint Architecture extracted from real code
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A unified architecture document derived from production repositories rather than from model training data.
- Voyager Multi-repo architecture analysis
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Reads five to ten reference repositories and extracts the patterns they share.
- Lane-Keeping Anti-hallucination discipline
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Holds generation to the patterns in the blueprint, so the AI cannot invent an architecture of its own.
also called Lane-Keeping Discipline
- Seed Mission Start a project from extracted patterns
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Bootstraps a new repository from a blueprint rather than from an empty folder.
- Genesis The new-project wizard
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Detects what kind of project you are starting and walks you through the setup.
- The Practicai The governance framework
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The standards that apply above any single project — what the AI may do, and what must be recorded.
- Stellar Context Engine Model routing and context management
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Chooses the model, budgets the tokens, and decides what context is worth sending.
- Execution Handoff Gate Which AI does the work
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Routes code generation to Claude Code, the Claude API, OpenAI, Bedrock or a local model.
- Construct An empty cloud instance
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A cloud machine with nothing loaded, for starting fresh rather than carrying state across.
- Cosmic Pulse Files light up as they change
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Edited files glow in the 3D view while you work, so the shape of what you are touching is visible.
- Space Lake The document store behind a galaxy
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Where everything read into a project lives — the documents in, before anything is made out of them.
- Galaxy Registry The list of known projects
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The file that records every galaxy on this machine and which one is active.
- Galaxy Explorer Repository search
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Search GitHub for repositories worth reading as references.
- Galaxy Manager Project settings
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Where repositories are added or removed, credentials are set, and the active project is switched.
- GitHub Companion The GitHub panel
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Issues, pull requests and mission launching, against the repository you are in.
Retire · 10
Marked for retirement
Words that leaked out of the codebase and into the interface. They are being renamed, not removed: the feature stays exactly where it is and keeps working. They are printed here because a vocabulary that hides its own mistakes is marketing.
- Space Station The dashboard
-
The overview of issues, missions and recent activity, shown when nothing specific is selected.
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Starkeeper Automated code review
-
Five specialised reviewers — security, architecture, logic, quality and style — each reading the change for one thing.
also called Commander
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Nova Protocol The coding standards
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The engineering rules the generated code is held to — short functions, units in names, minimal scope, fail fast.
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Transporter Room The team sign-in portal
-
Where a team member signs in and reaches their own instance, and nobody else's.
also called Ghost Portal
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Wormhole A secure tunnel to a cloud instance
-
A port-forwarding session from your machine to an instance that has no public address.
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Stellarcore Network The shared cloud networking
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The VPC, subnets and security groups every cloud instance sits inside.
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Cosmic Emissions The AI audit trail
-
Every prompt, response, token count and decision, recorded so a run can be explained after the fact.
From the file
Retired as a name, not as a feature. The thing stays exactly where it is and keeps working; only the word we teach changes. This is a data change in the glossary and touches no code, so nothing that compares or routes by name is affected.
- Pouch The galaxy's folder
-
The directory holding one galaxy's configuration, credentials and snapshots.
From the file
53 occurrences in UI HTML. This is a path on disk — galaxies/pouches/<name> — and it means nothing to a user. Rename in the UI; keep the path.
- Probe A pluggable panel
-
A self-contained interface module loaded into the workspace.
From the file
202 occurrences. An implementation detail of how the workspace is assembled. Users see panels, not probes.
- Main Panel The 3D view
-
The main view where the rings are drawn.
From the file
Names itself by position on screen, which tells a reader nothing.
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