Glossary

Agent. A Corvid function that composes prompts and tools and is the unit corvid run and corvid build operate on.

Approve. A compile-time token that authorizes a call to a tool whose effect row carries trust: supervisor_required. Lexically scoped.

Audit log. The append-only log of approve decisions, grounded unwraps, tool calls, and budget events produced by every agent run.

Budget. A compile-time cost ceiling on an agent (@budget($X)). The compiler refuses to emit if worst-case composed cost exceeds X.

cdylib. A shared library produced by corvid build --target=cdylib or as the output of a signed build. Carries the embedded ABI descriptor and signed-claim block.

Compile-time guarantee. A property the compiler statically refuses to violate. Catalogued in corvid contract list. Each row has an id, a class (Static / RuntimeChecked / OutOfScope), and adversarial test references.

Connector. A typed surface to an external service (Gmail, Slack, MS365, etc.) defined in std.connectors.*. Connector calls carry effect rows and replay-quarantine tags.

Effect. A named declaration of cost, latency, confidence, trust, reversibility, and data dimensions. Composed via uses into prompts, tools, and agents. See Effects.

Effect row. The set of effects on a function’s signature. The compiler computes the row’s closure across the function’s call graph and uses it for budget, approval, and grounding decisions.

Grounded. A type wrapper (Grounded<T>) that carries provenance. The compiler refuses silent unwrap.

Guarantee id. The string id of a compile-time guarantee in the registry, e.g. approval.dangerous_call_requires_token. Returned by diagnostic messages so you can corvid claim --explain <id> for context.

Invention. A Corvid-specific language/runtime capability we’d name in the README, the website, or launch material. Catalogued in docs/reference/inventions.md with shipped status, runnable command, test coverage, spec link.

Job. A durable agent run managed by the Phase 38 runner, with retry, idempotency, lease, and replay semantics.

Prompt. A function whose body is a string template, whose return type drives JSON-schema-shaped decode, and whose effect row carries the LLM call’s cost, latency, confidence.

Provenance. The (source, timestamp, content-hash) triple a Grounded<T> carries. Survives composition via Grounded.merge.

Receipt. A DSSE-signed bundle of a run’s audit log, prompt records, tool calls, and trace metadata. corvid receipt verify validates a third-party receipt.

Registry. The in-code source of truth for compile-time guarantees (crates/corvid-guarantees/src/registry.rs). Read by corvid contract list, the spec doc generator, the bilateral verifier, and the signed-claim coverage validator.

Replay. Deterministic re-execution of a recorded agent run. corvid replay <trace-id> reproduces it byte-for-byte without hitting the LLM provider or the side-effect tools.

Tool. A side-effecting function whose body is a host call (@host.x.y). Carries an effect row that the compiler uses for approval and reversibility decisions.

Trace. A structured record of an agent run: every prompt, every tool call, every approve, every grounded unwrap, every budget event. The input to corvid replay, corvid trace dag, and the eval surface.