---
id: reference.glossary
title: Glossary
summary: Definitions for current Teammately capabilities, product surfaces, artifacts, and lifecycle states.
kind: reference
product_area: reference
status: stable
updated: 2026-09-07
canonical: /docs/reference/glossary
---

# Glossary

Use these definitions when choosing a product surface, writing an operating instruction, or interpreting evaluation evidence. Capitalization identifies current product capabilities, surfaces, and named artifacts where it matters.

## Definition

The glossary fixes the meaning of current capability, surface, artifact, and lifecycle terms. Capability names describe what Teammately enables; product-surface names describe where people operate; artifact names identify the state that must remain traceable.

### Capabilities

- **Correctness Elicitation:** Turns specialist judgment into attributable standards and cases through structured dialogue, tasks, and checkpoints.
- **Coverage Engineering:** Represents the behavior space that a benchmark must cover through facets, stories, patterns, and concrete Cases.
- **Weave:** Builds case-grounded agent behavior from project knowledge, policies, Rubrics, tools, materials, and worlds.
- **Trialground:** Evaluates saved Harness versions against versioned benchmark boundaries and exposes inspectable evidence.
- **Coevolve:** Improves agents and benchmark understanding together by feeding contribution, coverage, and evaluation evidence into governed iteration.

## Fields, states, or lifecycle rules

### Project foundations

- **Project Agent Brief:** The published project-understanding document in Project Context.
- **Reference Materials:** The Agent Setup surface for connecting and indexing source-backed project knowledge.
- **Reference block:** An indexed unit of project knowledge with source and generation identity.
- **Comparison Direction:** Project Asset that guides meaningful candidate-output differences in comparative expert work; it is not a coverage facet or approved standard.
- **Review Screen:** Project Asset that configures the context and inputs presented to an expert.
- **Policy:** A governed statement of required or prohibited behavior, with applicability and provenance.
- **Rubric:** An executable judgment criterion, commonly binary, that tests applicable behavior against a Policy.
- **Coverage Facet:** Reusable project structure for representing behavior space, including Dimensions, Project Topics, and Case Construction Patterns.
- **Case:** A reusable behavior situation with canonical input, optional case materials, metadata, and an optional executable world reference.
- **Harness:** The agent configuration being built and evaluated. A mutable Draft can be saved as an immutable Harness version.
- **Project Input Schema:** The project-level architecture governing canonical Case input and material fields.
- **Benchmark Run Metadata:** Benchmark-level descriptive context requested when an Evaluation Run is created; it is not a project-level template or version identity.

### Benchmark workspace

- **Benchmark:** A named workspace for a particular correctness boundary and its datasets, coverage, contributions, evaluations, and improvement work.
- **Dataset snapshot:** A reproducible selection and representation of benchmark Cases.
- **Coverage Story:** Benchmark-scoped intent connecting a behavior risk or need to concrete coverage work.
- **Expert Contribution:** A benchmark-scoped request for specialist judgment, containing one or more Tasks and optional Checkpoints.
- **Task:** A bounded unit of work inside a Contribution, such as form input, chat, interview, or Case Review.
- **Checkpoint:** An explicit confirmation boundary inside a Contribution.
- **Contributed artifact:** A policy, Rubric, Case, or coverage observation produced by an expert while retaining Contribution provenance.
- **Benchmark version:** The fixed dataset and correctness boundary used for reproducible evaluation.
- **Evaluation Run:** One execution of a saved Harness Version against a Benchmark Version, with response, Rubric outcomes, settings, mapping, and metadata. Execution trajectories are not currently exposed.
- **Compare:** A symmetric Benchmark Evaluations matrix whose columns are saved Harness Versions and whose rows group governed evidence within one Benchmark Version.
- **Arena:** A comparative evaluation surface inside Benchmark Evaluations.
- **Improvement Session:** A benchmark-scoped process that explores candidate Harness changes against an explicit goal and pinned evidence.
- **Goal Contract:** The Improvement Session definition of target evidence, success criteria, and constraints.
- **Evaluation receipt:** Canonical evidence that a particular candidate was evaluated under a particular boundary.
- **Current frontier:** The set of retained candidates that currently represent the session's best supported tradeoffs.

## Decision checkpoint

| If you mean... | Use... | Do not substitute... |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reusable source-backed project knowledge | Reference Materials / Reference block | An untracked attachment or the latest file without generation identity |
| Human specialist work for a benchmark | Expert Contribution | A generic approval queue |
| The agent state actually evaluated | Saved Harness version | The mutable Harness Draft |
| A fixed evaluation boundary | Benchmark version | A Run or a score |
| One execution and its evidence | Evaluation Run | The Benchmark itself |
| Goal-directed candidate exploration | Improvement Session | An unversioned list of suggestions |

{% example-demo title="Distinguish benchmark and run" %}
Benchmark Version 4 fixes the selected Cases and governed standards. Harness Version 9 is the candidate. The Evaluation Run is the one execution of Harness Version 9 against Benchmark Version 4. Compare can place Harness Version 9 beside other saved Harness Versions in a symmetric evidence matrix, while an Improvement Session can use failed Case evidence as a pinned target for new candidates.
{% /example-demo %}

## Source confidence

Docs-backed and code-aligned: the product doctrine defines the five capabilities, and current navigation establishes the product-surface names. Use the linked code-backed pages when an exact field, state transition, or route behavior matters.

## Related task pages

{% related-card-grid title="Related task pages" %}
- [Product map](/docs/getting-oriented/product-map)
- [Product loop](/docs/product-loop)
- [Task index](/docs/operating-manual/task-index)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Related reference pages

{% related-card-grid title="Related reference pages" %}
- [Object model](/docs/object-model)
- [Key objects and relationships](/docs/getting-oriented/key-objects-and-relationships)
- [IDs and identity](/docs/reference/ids)
{% /related-card-grid %}