Glossary¶

The terms used across the console, the CLI, the TUI and these docs. Where the platform's resource names use a different word, the entry says so.

A¶

.alis/.env: The product-level file of a deployment environment's variables that alis run loads; written by alis environment refresh --output.
Access request: A member's request for Ideate or Build access on an account, approved or declined by an admin.
Account: An organisation's home on AlisX: one plan, billing details, a payment method, members, and their Ideate projects and Build environments.
Account admin pages: The pages under /admin/accounts/ID (Activity, Billing, Members, Branding, Interviews, Artifacts, Support, Settings) where admins run an account.
Active account: The one account your session names; Ideate, Build, the console and the CLI all read it, usage is measured against it, and it receives the invoice. New projects go into it, and alis ideate list and find search it. Set with the account card or alis accounts select; switching in one switches the other.
Admin: The account role that may manage members, product access, requests, limits, billing and settings.
Agent chat (thread): A conversation with Alis, either general or about one project.
Alignment opportunity: A gap derived from research or an interview report, with a resolution state (unresolved, rejected, reconciled).
Alis: The agent you work with in the console. You chat with Alis from the navigation pane or a project; Alis reads your projects, answers from them, runs interviews and research, and writes artifacts. Replaced the Ideate agent in October 2026. Not the company, which is Alis Exchange.
Alis Build: The Alis Build tools, for code: Alis Build Environments, Alis Build Workstations and Alis Build DBD, in your own Google Cloud under your own IAM. They sit under Build in the console's navigation pane, and Build access opens them. Also the name the CLI gives itself: alis login signs in to Alis Build.
Alis Exchange: The company that builds AlisX. Alis Exchange, Alis Ideate, Alis Build and AlisX are its trademarks.
Alis Ideate: The Alis Ideate tools, for context: Alis Ideate Interviews, Alis Ideate Projects and Alis Ideate Artifacts. They capture what people know and want (notes, recordings, documents, interviews, research) and turn it into structured context and artifacts. They sit under Ideate in the console's navigation pane, and Ideate access opens them.
AlisX: The agent-native platform that brings structure to how and where you and your teams work with your AI tools. Eight tools: the Skill Store, the three Alis Ideate tools, the three Alis Build tools and AlisX Specialists, reached from the console at console.alisx.com, the alis CLI and the TUI.
AlisX Specialists: The people to ask when you or your agent need another person: a working Builder who reads your ticket first, including tickets written by agents. Support in the console; alis specialist in the CLI.
Approval (--approve): A human's recorded go-ahead for a command gated by the automation tier; never satisfies the production gate.
Artifact (Alis Ideate Artifact): The name alisx.com gives a project's outputs: the documents, specs and prototypes generated from a project's context, each traceable to what people said.
Async operation: A define, build, deploy or block operation started with --async, returning an operation name to wait on later.
Auto-enrol: A per-product rule letting anyone from a recognised email domain join the account and claim that product without approval.
Automation tier: A per-user setting (manual, balanced, autonomous) that decides which command classes (mutating, destructive) need approval before they run headless.

B¶

Billed in arrears: Usage accrues during the month and is invoiced at month end.
Billing period: A calendar month; each account receives one invoice per period.
Billing setup: The Add a payment method to continue flow: billing details, spending, card.
Block branch: The block/* git branch a block install or upgrade commits to before the CLI merges it into the main branch.
Build: The middle step of DBD: turning a pushed build-repo commit into an immutable service version with Docker images. Also the family name of the Alis Build tools, as in Build access and the Build heading in the navigation pane.
Build environment: What Alis Build Environments gives you: the top-level container of the Alis Build tools, created inside your own Google Cloud organisation, holding products, the shared definitions repo and your workstations. Environments in the console's navigation pane. Called an organisation in resource names and in alis org; historically a landing zone. Not a deployment environment.
Build profile: The per-user Build preferences created by the Build welcome journey; needed before entering Build.
Build repo: A product's git repository of implementations, cloned to ~/alis.build/<org>/build/<product>.
Build spec: A specification written with the Alis Build plugin in a coding harness. Retired in October 2026 with Launch build: build from your coding agent instead.
Build specialist: The human engineer reachable from a support ticket, who can gather missing context by starting an Ideate interview with the ticket's participants. A Specialist on alisx.com: a working Builder who answers, with no tier between customer and engineer.

C¶

Code block: A versioned, templated snapshot of a service (protos, infra and build files) that any product can install with alis blocks install; its .skill/ folder is published as the skill block-<id>.
Connected Apps: Third-party apps linked to your user from the profile page.
Context: The organisation, product, service and deployment environments the CLI resolves from the working directory (alis context view).
Contract version: A defined version of a service's protobuf, with patch zero (for example 1.4.0).
Contribution: One thing a person put into a project: a note, voice memo, screen recording, file upload, meeting transcript, interview or research task. The API calls it a stream (ideas/<id>/streams/<id>).
Contribution session: A group of contributions gathered together, most often one participant's interview conversation (ideas/<id>/contributionSessions/<id>).
Cost code: The customer's own accounting identifier on a member, to which that member's spend is attributed.
Credits: The unit of usage across the platform, one meter for every tool; one pool per account, priced per 100 credits by the plan.

D¶

DBD: Define, Build, Deploy: the three steps every change to a service goes through, each from a pushed commit. Alis Build DBD on alisx.com.
Define: Compiling a service's protos at a pushed commit into a contract version and generated language packages.
Definitions repo: The build environment's git repository of .proto files, cloned to ~/alis.build/<org>/define.
Deploy: Applying a version's Terraform (infra/) into one or more deployment environments.
Deployment: A version running in a deployment environment; at most one per service per deployment environment.
Deployment environment: A target in a product that its services deploy into (Development, Staging, Production), with its own Google Cloud project, variables and designated branches. alis environment in the CLI.
Designated branches: Branches a deployment environment is meant to deploy from; deploying a version built elsewhere asks for confirmation.
Dot reference: <org>, <org>.<product> or <org>.<product>.<env>, filling right-aligned from the working directory when parts are omitted.
Dry run: alis define --dry-run: compiling local, uncommitted protos with the real compiler without publishing anything.

E¶

Enrolment: Registering a laptop's ssh key on a workstation and saving the alis-<org>-<id> alias.
Environment: Two different things, so these docs always say which: a build environment, which Alis Build Environments gives you and the console lists under Environments, or a deployment environment, a target a product's services deploy into.
Environment variable: A named value stored on a deployment environment, passed to a service's Terraform as an input on the next deploy.
Error envelope: The JSON object {"error": {"code", "message", "retry", "agent", …}} a command prints on stdout when it fails before an operation exists or refuses to proceed.
Exit code 3: Confirmation required: PRODUCTION_CONFIRMATION_REQUIRED or APPROVAL_REQUIRED; an agent stops and asks a human.

F¶

Feature freeze: A product admin's hold on one service in one deployment environment; every deploy, plan and destroy of it is refused (DEPLOYMENT_FROZEN) until lifted. alis service freeze / alis service unfreeze.
Free credits: The grant a new account starts with; billing begins when they are used up.

G¶

Gap analysis: The managed output listing what is still unknown about a project, as topics with tagged issues.
Gap tags: The five labels for an unknown: conflict, missing voice, open question, unvalidated assumption, underspecified.
Glass view: A console screen that shows the live inside of one thing of yours: a build environment's products, services and shared infrastructure; where each of a product's deployments stands against its designated branches; every artifact of a contract version as it lands. Reached with the Glass view button in that thing's title bar.

H¶

Handoff: Moving a running local coding-agent session to a workstation with alis workstation handoff, and back with reclaim.
Harness: A coding agent runtime such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Cursor or Antigravity.
Headless: A run with --json, or with stdin or stdout not a terminal; prompts cannot be answered, so gates become exit codes.
herdr: The terminal workspace the CLI integrates with for product spaces, service tabs, handoffs and the operations board.

I¶

Ideate: The family name of the Alis Ideate tools, as in Ideate access and the Ideate heading in the navigation pane. See Alis Ideate.
Identity provider: The service you sign in with (for example Google or Microsoft).
Image: A Docker image built from a detected Dockerfile, named neurons/<service-id>[/<folder>][/<name>] and tagged with the built commit.
Injected variables: The ALIS_* Terraform inputs Deploy supplies: project ids, region, service id, commit and more.
Interactive overview: A generated, explorable web view of a project, turned on from the Synthesis screen once a goal is set.
Internet research: A research task in which the agent researches published material in phases and writes a report with references.
Interview: What Alis Ideate Interviews runs: an AI interviewer talks to each participant against a plan, and what they say lands on the project as contributions.

M¶

Makefile run target: The one command that starts a service locally; what alis run and the TUI's m execute.
Managed output: An output a project keeps current on its own as contributions arrive: overview (idea brief), pain points, current process, technology landscape, jargon, stakeholder map, gap analysis, project goal and the interactive home view.
MCP server: The Alis Build control plane at mcp.alis.build: SpecIt, RunDefine/RunBuild/RunDeploy and SearchSkills/LoadSkill for agents without a shell.
Member: A user's membership of an account: their role, their Ideate access, their Build access, an optional monthly usage limit and an optional cost code.

N¶

Named Dockerfile: A <name>.Dockerfile that builds an extra image from the same folder.
NDJSON progress: One small JSON event per line on stderr while a long-running command waits.
Neuron: The resource-name term for a service (.../neurons/<id>).
Notification strip: The rows under the TUI frame showing running and recent operations; ShiftW opens the active one.

O¶

Operation: A long-running platform task started by define, build, deploy or a block install; addressed as operations/<id>.
Organisation: The resource-name term for a build environment (organisations/<id>).
Output (output artifact): A document Ideate synthesises from a project, such as the overview, pain points, gap analysis, a PRD or a business case. The API calls it a spec (specs/<id>).
Output contract: The rule that stdout carries exactly one machine-readable result and stderr carries progress.
Overview: The console screen titled Synthesis (and its managed outputs) that shows a project in one document: overview, pain points, current process, technology, jargon, stakeholders, gap analysis.
Owner, Editor, Viewer: The three project roles: manage sharing and changes; contribute; view.

P¶

Package id: <org>.<product>.<path>.<vN>, for example acme.sh.orders.v1; names the service, its protobuf package, its generated packages and its folders.
Participant brief: The participant-facing description of an interview round, shown before they join.
Per-user credit limit: A member's own monthly usage limit: the most credits they may use in the account in a calendar month (UTC). Set from User activity on Activity.
Plan: The pricing tier an account holds: Express (trial), Foundation, Professional, Enterprise or Servicer. One plan and one credit balance cover every tool on the platform.
Plan-only: --plan-only: run Terraform plan without apply; never gated.
Plan-only deploy: A deploy that runs terraform plan and changes nothing; never gated.
Prepaid: The balance is topped up to a minimum at the start of each billing period.
Product: A self-contained feature set with a two-letter id, its own Google Cloud project, build repo, registries and deployment environments.
Product access: A member's Ideate access and Build access, shown as two switches on Members and granted or revoked independently. Ideate access opens the Alis Ideate tools; Build access opens the Alis Build tools.
Production environment: A deployment environment of type PROD; deploys to it and changes to its variables need explicit confirmation.
Production gate: The rule that a production deploy, or changing or revealing a production environment's variables, needs --confirm-production or an interactive yes.
Project: What Alis Ideate Projects holds for one piece of work: its people, contributions, interviews, research and artifacts. The API calls it an idea (ideas/<id>).
Project goal: The managed output stating what the project is trying to achieve and why now. The API calls it project intent.

R¶

Recognised domain: An email domain the account lists as its own; drives the team list at sign-up and auto-enrol.
Release level: A block version's maturity: GA, RC, BETA, ALPHA or EXPERIMENTAL.
Release notes: The list of changes across Ideate and Build at /release-notes.
Report: The synthesis an interview or research task writes across all its participants or phases.
Report instructions: Free text steering what a report leads with, how it is organised and who reads it, without changing what participants are asked.
Requested output: An output generated when asked for, such as a product requirements document, business case, request for proposal, UI design brief or AI prototype prompt.
Retag: A build that reuses the previous images under a new version because only infrastructure changed.
Round (phase): One part of an interview or research task, with its own plan, brief, mode and participants.

S¶

Sample prompt: A skill's "try it out" prompt, metadata.sample-prompt in its front matter.
Secret Manager variable: An environment variable whose value lives in the deployment environment project's Secret Manager and is left out of deploy inputs.
Service: One deployable part of a product: one contract, one or more images, one Terraform module. Called a neuron in resource names.
Skill: A curated instruction document (plus optional resource files) that teaches an agent how to do one thing on the platform; found with alis skills search, loaded live with alis skills load.
Skill Store: The platform's knowledge and know-how: every skill, in four layers (me, my team, community, platform), found by meaning and loaded live. Skill store in the console at /skills; alis skills in the CLI.
Spec library: The list of a project's outputs on the Artifacts screen.
Specialist: See AlisX Specialists.
Stale: The state of an output when contributions have arrived that it does not yet reflect. The CLI prints a [STALE] heading on it.
Still settling: The note on a project map meaning contributions are still processing, participants are mid-interview, or outputs are stale.

T¶

TUI: The full-screen terminal interface that alis opens with no arguments.

U¶

User Profile: Your own name, photo, details and connected apps, at /account.

V¶

Version: An immutable product of one build: semantic version, commit, branch, images and state.
Viewer: The account role every member holds at minimum; read access to the account.

W¶

Workstation: What Alis Build Workstations gives you: a machine of your own inside a build environment's cloud project, with a browser terminal, SSH and an address per port (alis workstation).