Glossary
Precise definitions of ΔOS terminology
Last reviewed: 2025-01-25
Glossary
Precise definitions of terms used in ΔOS documentation. When terminology is unclear, refer here.
We use specific terms with specific meanings. "Guarantee" means something different from "goal." "Judgment" means something different from "decision." Read carefully.
A
Action
The operation an agent wants to perform. Actions are named using a domain.operation convention (e.g., payment.initiate, database.write). An action only executes after its Intent receives an Allow judgment.
Agent
An autonomous system that initiates actions. Agents may be AI models, automated scripts, or any software that acts with some degree of independence. ΔOS governs agent actions—it doesn't build or run agents.
Allow
A Judgment type indicating the action may proceed. The most common judgment outcome.
Audit Trail
The immutable record of all Intents and Judgments. Hash-chained for integrity verification. Cannot be modified or deleted.
Authority Boundary
The defined scope of what a component (human, system, or LIM) can decide. Enforced by system design, not policy.
B
Block
A Judgment type indicating the action must not proceed. Includes a reason explaining why.
C
Capability
A specific function that ΔOS provides. Capabilities may be affected differently during partial failures.
Context
Additional information provided with an Intent to inform policy evaluation. Part of the evidence bundle.
D
Deterministic
Producing the same output for the same inputs, every time. LIM evaluation is deterministic—replay any Intent with its evidence and get the same Judgment.
E
Escalate
A Judgment type indicating human decision is required. The action cannot proceed until a human approves or rejects.
Escalation
The workflow triggered when an Intent receives an Escalate judgment. Includes routing to the appropriate team, SLA tracking, and decision recording.
Evidence
Context gathered to inform policy evaluation. Includes automatic evidence (agent trust score, system health) and custom evidence (provided by the submitter).
Evidence-Only Mode
Operating mode where Intents are recorded but not blocked. Used for observation and onboarding.
F
Fail Closed
Behavior where failures result in blocking (not allowing) actions. ΔOS fails closed by default.
G
Governance
The process of applying policy to agent actions. Autonomy Governance specifically applies this before execution.
Guarantee
A property enforced by system design that cannot be violated under normal operation. Stronger than a goal or SLO.
H
Human Authority
The capability of humans to define policies, override judgments, and maintain ultimate control. Always preserved.
I
Intent
The fundamental unit of governance. Represents an agent's request to take a specific action. Contains the action, resource, parameters, and context.
Immutable
Cannot be changed after creation. Intents and Judgments are immutable.
J
Judgment
The result of evaluating an Intent against policies. Always one of: Allow, Block, or Escalate.
K
Kill Switch
Emergency mechanism to immediately block all agent actions. Always available, cannot be disabled by the system or LIMs.
L
LIM (Ledger-Integrated Module)
A policy evaluation module that takes an Intent as input and produces a Judgment recommendation as output. LIMs are deterministic and composable.
Ledger
The append-only audit trail where all Intents and Judgments are recorded.
O
Override
A human action that changes a Judgment. Allows overriding blocks or blocking allowed actions. All overrides are recorded.
P
Policy
A rule that defines how Intents should be judged. Expressed through LIM configuration.
Pre-Execution Evaluation
The practice of evaluating policy before an action executes, not after. The core principle of ΔOS.
R
Replay
Re-evaluating a historical Intent with its original evidence to verify the Judgment. Used for auditing and debugging.
Resource
The target of an action. Identified by a path-like string (e.g., users/123, production/api).
S
SLA (Service Level Agreement)
A commitment with contractual implications. See also SLO.
SLO (Service Level Objective)
A measurable target for service performance. Can be missed (rarely) unlike guarantees.
T
Trust Score
A measure of an agent's reliability based on historical behavior. Automatically collected evidence.
V
Value Attribution
The process of measuring and attributing value to governance decisions. Provides observable impact metrics.
Term Usage Guide
See Also
For detailed explanations: