Glossary
The primitives of the agentic web
Definitions for the architectural concepts the portfolio is built on. Each is a primitive that agentic systems will need to name — and a coordinate held in the portfolio.
Agent
A system that perceives, decides, and acts toward a goal with some degree of autonomy.
Attribution
The source-binding primitive that ties an agentic system's output back to the data, model, and decision that produced it.
Federation
Coordination across independent systems or organizations without surrendering control to a center.
Infrastructure
The shared, foundational services autonomous systems depend on to operate.
Intelligence
The capacity of a system to model, reason about, and act effectively in its domain.
Lineage
The traced path of how data and decisions flow and transform as they move through an agentic system.
Observability
The ability to see inside an autonomous system — what it did, why, and whether it is behaving.
Orchestration
The coordination layer that sequences agents, tools, and systems toward an outcome.
Platform
The organizing layer others build on — it defines what a category contains and frames everything beneath it.
Protocol
The rules of engagement by which agents and systems establish identity, authority, and capability.
Provenance
The record of where data, a model, or a decision came from and how it has changed — attribution extended across time.
Substrate
The foundational layer a category is built on — the primitive every higher layer grounds in.