Key terms and definitions used across essays, posts, and systems. Terms are automatically linked throughout the site.
Software systems where AI agents autonomously execute tasks, generate code, and make decisions at scale — with humans providing direction rather than doing the work directly.
A system whose internal workings are hidden or incomprehensible to its operators — you can see inputs and outputs, but not how or why decisions are made inside.
The total amount of mental effort required to understand or operate a system. Lower cognitive load means easier comprehension and fewer errors.
The maximum amount of text (measured in tokens) that a large language model can process in a single session — effectively the AI's working memory limit.
The degree to which a system's structure and naming reflect the real-world domain it models, making it readable by anyone who understands the business — not just engineers.
A software design approach where the system's structure and language are modeled around the real-world business domain it serves, rather than technical abstractions.
A data architecture pattern where every change is stored as an immutable event in sequence, rather than overwriting current state — enabling full auditability and time-travel through system history.
The degree to which you — or anyone working with you — can actually see and understand a complex system well enough to trust it, improve it, and change it without fear.
A holistic approach to analysis that focuses on how components interrelate and work together over time within larger systems.
The ability to understand not just a system's current state, but how and why it reached that state — through auditable history of events and decisions over time.
A shared vocabulary used consistently between code and business stakeholders, so that terms in the system mean the same thing to everyone — from engineers to product managers.
A software structure where each feature is organized as a self-contained slice through all layers of the stack (UI to data), rather than grouping code by technical layer.