---
canonicalUrl: "https://www.hoalee.net/specgent/docs/reference/glossary"
title: "Specgent glossary"
description: "Terms used across the Specgent documentation."
kind: "doc"
language: "en"
---

# Specgent glossary

## Initiative chain

One line of work, from the idea down to the Slice Specification\. A chain is created by the first thing placed in it, and the levels above its entry point stay empty\.

## Operation

One manually invoked step of the pipeline\. Each operation reads bounded inputs, writes only its declared outputs and then stops\.

## Sealed revision

Immutable bytes with a content hash, held in the content\-addressed store\. A later revision is a new revision, and nothing overwrites an accepted one\. Sealing is not acceptance\.

## Approval

A separate record naming an authority, a revision and an approval identifier\. Which role may approve depends on the document type\.

## Verdict

A review’s opinion about one exact revision: `PASS`, `PASS_WITH_ADVISORIES`, `REVISE`, `PROVISIONAL` or `BLOCKED`\. A verdict is not readiness, and the two never appear on the same record\.

## Readiness

A derived fact about a Feature, computed by replaying the recorded history rather than declared by any operation\. The vocabulary is `not-ready`, `partial`, `development-ready`, `blocked`, `stale` and `not-applicable`, and it stops at `development-ready` on purpose\.

## Grounding

A promoted revision of scanned workspace context\. Operations that require context refuse without it, and a run that proceeded without it is recorded as ungrounded\.

## Entry mode

How an operation was entered, recorded with the run: `native`, `imported`, `revise` or `diagnostic`\. A diagnostic run names the missing prerequisite and the command that would supply it, and produces no artifact\.

## Portable description section

The part of a specification that a planner or tracker needs, embedded as a deterministic projection of the canonical register rather than written beside it\.

## Undetermined

A `doctor` result that is neither pass nor fail, because the check could not reach a verdict\. It is never read as a pass: a skip is not a pass\.