Glossary
Plain-language definitions for terms used throughout the Elowen manual.
Accounts, access, and permissions
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Account | A person's identity in an Elowen instance. Conversations, settings, and access are tied to an account where supported. |
| Administrator | An account with instance-wide authority to manage users, settings, plugins, and services. |
| Unattended run | Work started without an interactive person available to answer questions, such as a scheduled job. |
| Permission rule | A rule that allows a tool or command without asking, asks for approval, or denies it. When rules overlap, the last matching rule wins. Built-in defaults allow other tools and commands; only the file-writing and file-transfer tools ask first. |
| YOLO mode | A setting that automatically approves permission requests that would otherwise ask you. It applies to the current conversation when you turn it on with /yolo in the CLI, or to every new session when it is your saved default. It does not override a deny rule, or the strict setting for unattended runs, which blocks ask rules. |
| Plugin grant | Access an administrator gives an account to a plugin marked as grantable. A grant does not override that account's individual tool permissions. |
| Personal and instance scope | Personal work belongs to one account. Instance-wide work applies across Elowen and requires administrator authority. |
| Project | A named access boundary that controls which files and resources a conversation can use. |
| Managed Project environment | A persistent runtime for a Project, with its own files and services. It is separate from a local Git worktree. |
| Worktree | A Git working directory linked to a repository and branch. It lets you work on a separate branch without changing another checkout. |
Chat, models, and context
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Brain | Elowen's conversational runtime. It prepares each turn, calls the chosen model and permitted tools, and returns the response. |
| Channel | A chat platform connected to Elowen through a plugin, such as Discord, Telegram, Microsoft Teams, or WhatsApp. |
| Compaction | A summary of older conversation context that makes room for more messages in a model's context window. |
| Context window | The amount of prompt and response text a model can handle at once. |
| Conversation | The saved message history you can resume. /new starts another conversation; /clear empties the current history. |
| Model | The AI selected to generate a response. |
| Code mode | A mode in which the model runs a JavaScript script and calls its permitted tools from that script. An administrator turns it on per provider. |
| Reasoning effort | How much extra reasoning a model is asked to use, when it supports effort levels. |
| Provider | The service or account that makes one or more AI models available to Elowen. |
| API key | A secret issued by a service to authenticate Elowen's requests to it. Keep it private. |
| OAuth | A sign-in method that lets Elowen connect to an account at another service without collecting that account's password. |
| Session | The live state used to continue a conversation, including its current context and settings. A session can restart without deleting the saved conversation. |
| Tool | An action Elowen can call, such as reading a file, searching, or running a command. Tool access is checked before execution. |
Projects, modes, and delegated work
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Build mode | A work mode in which Elowen can make changes using the tools it is allowed to use. |
| Plan mode | A work mode for preparing an approach before making changes. Its restrictions limit actions but do not create a separate filesystem boundary. |
| Workflow mode | A work mode that organizes a task as a graph of sub-agents. It does not add permissions or delegate every request. |
| Sandbox | The bundled plugin, shown as Environments in the web app. It confines commands from accounts that are not instance operators, and provides persistent environments for managed Projects. |
| Sub-agent | A child task delegated to Elowen. It works in its own conversation and returns a result within the caller's access boundary. |
| Delegation | A focused task sent to a sub-agent. The child reports its result to the caller. |
| Fork | A sub-agent started with the caller's conversation context instead of a clean conversation. |
| Workflow | A group of delegated tasks with dependencies. Independent tasks can run in parallel; dependent tasks wait for their inputs. |
| Working directory | The directory commands use when no other directory is specified. In the CLI, /cd displays or changes it. |
Memory, search, and skills
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Embedding | A numeric representation of text that helps compare meaning rather than exact words. |
| Memory | A saved fact intended to be available in later conversations. It is private to an account unless shared through a Project pool. |
| Memory category | A named group used to organize saved memories. Memories without a category are not normally recalled. |
| Semantic search | Search that finds relevant results by meaning, using embeddings rather than exact word matches alone. |
| Vitality | A score from 0 to 100 for each memory. It falls while the memory goes unused and rises with how often it is recalled. It adds a small share to search ranking. A memory older than the grace period whose vitality is below the floor can be moved to the trash automatically, within a daily limit per account. |
| Skill | A reusable set of instructions Elowen can apply to a task. Skills guide work; they do not grant access. |
| ToolSearch | A tool that finds and loads a tool's full details when the model needs them. Some tools are initially listed by name only. |
Plugins, integrations, and services
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Daemon | The background service that runs the API, conversations, plugins, storage, and other shared Elowen work. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol, a standard for connecting Elowen to external tool servers. |
| MCP server | A local process or remote service that provides tools through the Model Context Protocol. |
| Webhook | An HTTP request a service sends to Elowen when an event occurs, such as a new channel message. |
| GitHub connection | An account's authorization for GitHub features. It can expire and need reconnecting. |
| Project mapping | The GitHub repository associated with an Elowen Project. The terminal commands of the account that holds it run with that account's GitHub identity. |
| Plugin | An add-on that can provide tools, settings, integrations, pages, or other features. |
| Plugin marketplace | The catalog administrators use to find and install available plugins. |
| Web service | The service that delivers Elowen's browser app. It communicates with the daemon. |
Scheduling and releases
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cron job | A prompt that runs repeatedly on a schedule. |
| Wake-up | A prompt scheduled to run once, then remove itself. |
| Migration | A database update that runs when a newer Elowen version starts. |
| Licensing server | The service that verifies an installation's licence and serves the core and plugin releases it is entitled to. elowen update and the marketplace both fetch from it; there is no npm-based release channel. |
| Release | A core or plugin version published on the licensing server and covered by an installation's licence. A local source checkout can contain newer code than the latest release. |