Glossary
Work
Plan · plan document
A versioned document that imports into nodes and edges. Serialization is canonical: the same document renders to the same bytes, always.
Initiative · objective · task
The three node kinds. An initiative groups objectives; an objective owns one workspace clone; a task is the unit a worker executes.
Dependency edge · waiver
A directed edge that gates readiness. A waived edge is recorded but ignored by promotion.
Node states
pending · ready · running · blocked · awaiting_approval · done ·
partial · discarded. Only legal transitions exist; blocked carries a
reason such as attempt-limit or abandoned.
Readiness
A node is ready when every non-waived dependency is done or
partial. Promotion runs in the transaction that completed the
dependency. See Scheduling & execution.
Claims and execution
Lease · fence · TTL
A time-limited claim on a subject (node or repository). The fence is a generation counter that never resets; renewal keeps the fence. TTL expiry makes the claim refusable but never self-heals.
Claim
The write command that starts execution: leases, run tree, first attempt,
state transition, events — one transaction. Refusals are typed:
lease-held, illegal-transition,
plan-incomplete, and others.
Heartbeat
A worker's renewal call at one third of the lease TTL. It extends both the task and objective leases at their existing fences.
Run
An active-or-ended execution record for one node. An objective run has no parent and schedules task runs under it. One active run per node, enforced by a partial index.
Attempt
One try of a task run, numbered from 1, pinning one provider registration
and model for its whole life. The attempt limit — 3 by default from
configuration — blocks the task with attempt-limit.
Worker · driver
An external process that claims, heartbeats and reports over HTTP. Runs
are pinned to a driver; a claim whose driver differs from the pin is refused
(drive-mode-pinned).
State and surroundings
Home
The daemon's directory: kanthord.db, git worktrees, journal,
run scratch space, keys. Guarded by a home lock; one daemon per home.
Workspace clone
The git clone of an objective's repository. One per objective, shared by its tasks. Profile, conventions and ambient files freeze at clone time.
Actor
An authenticated principal: human or harness.
Harness actors hold Bearer tokens; revocation fences their leases.
Event log
The append-only record of every transition — lease.claimed,
node.running, renewals and more — written inside the same
transaction as the change it describes.
Refusal
A typed, named reason a command declines to act. Commands throw them; the server maps them to error envelopes. A refusal never mutates state.
Operation registry · lifecycle
The single table of operations in http/contract/. An entry is
routed (bound to one command or query) or stubbed
(answers 501, writes nothing). Absent means post-MVP.