Glossary | DocsFab

Use this glossary to look up DocsFab product, knowledge, workflow, delivery, authority, and quality terms. Each definition gives the DocsFab-specific meaning; follow its related link when you need the full concept or contract.

Browse alphabetically: A · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · M · N · P · Q · R · S · T · W

A

Approval : A recorded grant from an accountable authority for a specific mutation, publication, release, or external action. Approval for one boundary does not imply approval for another.

Artifact : A versioned workflow output, such as a finding, report, documentation page, patch, preview, branch, or proposed pull request or merge request.

C

Context Packet : A revision-bound, budgeted structural view of the selected repository that the runtime prepares before a workflow step. Packet contents are not retained in run records.

D

Documentation Brief : A target-specific handoff that pins the audience, reader outcome, repository revision, product reference-model version, evidence, style profile, template, quality policy, and authority boundary.

Documentation Convergence : The post-reconciliation transition that updates affected pages, rescans every configured information-architecture family, generates newly ready missing targets, and records targets that remain blocked.

Documentation Readiness : The evidence-backed assessment of whether DocsFab has enough information to produce one documentation target for a named audience and release.

Related: Evidence Before Drafting

Durable Patch : The Git binary patch the runtime preserves from an authorized write-capable run before the disposable workspace is cleaned up.

E

Evidence State : The custody or transformation state of a source item, such as raw, source-authored, participant-edited, transformed, awaiting confirmation, or attribution-unverified.

F

Façade Inputs : The three replaceable inputs at the DocsFab package edge: imported accepted canon (knowledge), a locked quality pack, and the one-job runtime executor. Runtime does not own product truth.

Finding : An identified technical, editorial, audience, policy, or delivery issue that remains active until addressed or explicitly dismissed with rationale.

G

Governed Workflow : A fixed Task → Workflow → Step contract with bounded tools, defined evidence, and explicit write authorization. Disk presence of a skill does not activate a governed workflow.

Related: Documentation Jobs in DocsFab

H

Host : packages/host, a DocsFab GitLab channel. It is not a fourth façade and not an outside product. Runtime writes the patch. Host is the only DocsFab code allowed to hold a GitLab credential long enough to post a note or, when authorized, open a draft merge request.

Related: Delivering Results

Host Publisher : The fixed-purpose DocsFab component in packages/host that may redeem a task-scoped credential lease and perform a typed GitLab mutation. A valid lease is not a repository grant.

I

Inconsistency : A meaningful difference between source claims, classified by behavior, intent, terminology, scope, version, representation, or documentation quality and routed to an appropriate resolution owner.

Inference Hub Metadata : The authenticated DocsFab catalog-evidence adapter that reads only INFERENCE_HUB_METADATA_API_KEY (ihub_api_...). It is not used for ordinary composition-execution inference.

Related: Install DocsFab

J

Job : One bound execution of a catalogued workflow against a pinned repository revision, using pinned knowledge and a locked quality pack. This is the sense used throughout this documentation set, as in “the runtime is a one-job executor” and “a job takes pinned knowledge”.

Related: Documentation Jobs in DocsFab

Job Packet : The durable record the host tracks for one submitted workflow, carrying its own status, events, and progress through submit, observe, cancel, and resume. Statuses are queued, running, needs-input, needs-human-decision, succeeded, failed, and cancelled. The spine that manages packets is repository-tested and has no production caller.

Related: Delivering Results

M

Mailbox : A DocsFab surface that kicks off, observes, and resumes one catalogued job on an existing conversation (GitLab merge-request notes first). It talks on that merge request. It does not by itself open a new draft merge request.

Related: GitLab Host Mailbox in DocsFab

Merge Receipt : The immutable record of a synthesis boundary, exact inputs, claim decisions, inferences, conflicts, approvals, and delta from a prior product reference model.

Model Context Protocol : An interface through which an agent can access governed tools or context. DocsFab identifies MCP as one possible interactive adapter; the product contract does not depend on it.

N

Needs Input : An honest product stop that records a named gap instead of inventing intent. Several doors can print this string: routing-time do, delegated pause, editorial work products, knowledge continuation, human-decision (CLI-skinned), and product disposition needs-input. They are not the same class. Refer to the Stop Classes tables.

Related: Stop Classes in DocsFab

Non-Author Review : Adversarial evaluation by a person or clean agent that did not participate in producing the artifact. Same-session self-review does not satisfy this minimum DocsFab gate.

NVIDIA API Catalog : The hosted NVIDIA chat route at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1. Installed NVIDIA API Catalog compositions authenticate with DOCSFAB_NVIDIA_API_KEY only.

Related: Install DocsFab

NVIDIA Inference API : The internal NVIDIA Inference Hub serving route, nvidia-inference-api, an OpenAI-compatible origin recorded in the route registry. DocsFab uses it for catalog inspection and the optional semantic judge, not for the NVIDIA API Catalog compositions.

NVIDIA Inference Hub : The internal NVIDIA catalog and key console at NVIDIA Inference Hub. Other tools often store the same key as NVIDIA_API_KEY or NVINF_HUB_KEY. DocsFab does not read those names.

P

Product Disposition : The product-outcome plane of a finished job, independent of execution status: ready, not-ready, needs-input, inconclusive, or blocked. Successful execution is not a ready product.

Related: Stop Classes in DocsFab

Product Reference Model : A versioned package of evidence-linked claims, relationships, terminology, diagrams, conflicts, decisions, open questions, and readiness assessments that is the canonical representation of shared product understanding for a defined scope.

Related: Product Knowledge in DocsFab

Projection : A reader-oriented representation derived from a reference model, such as a documentation page, diagram, glossary, summary, or readiness view. A projection does not replace its source model or evidence.

Q

Quality Capability Slot : One required MVP quality outcome. Slots are covered many-to-many by human or agent roles, skills, checks, policies, knowledge operations, runtime behavior, and repository automation; they do not imply one skill per slot.

Quality Function : A required judgment outcome (technical writing, technical review and verification, editorial review, quality evaluation, or target-audience evaluation) that a configured human or agent provider can supply.

R

Representation : An original or derived form of one source item, including its media type, locator, integrity, parent representation, and transformation metadata.

Run Record : An append-only record of what a documentation job requested, planned, attempted, completed, verified, delivered, published, failed, or abandoned.

S

Software Requirements Document : An optional, project- and workflow-dependent requirements artifact. DocsFab can ingest an existing SRD as source evidence, recommend creating one for a new project, or generate an updated SRD as a projection of the canonical product reference model.

Source Item : One attributed piece of evidence within a source thread. An item preserves its own time, version, scope, governance, lineage, and representations.

Source Thread : The stable, append-only lineage for one identifiable evidence origin. A thread can contain multiple documents, interviews, diagrams, tests, observations, and corrections.

Related: Source Threads

Standing Repository Grant : A DocsFab permission record, activated by a GitLab Maintainer or Owner who is also listed in DocsFab platform policy, for one exact GitLab host and numeric project. The contribute tier can allow a namespaced unprotected push and create-or-reuse draft MR. It does not include merge, approve, mark-ready, or protected-default write. The maintain-prm add-on lets the feedback publisher ready its own product reference model update and add it to the merge train, and nothing more. Host revalidates the grant immediately before mutation.

Stop Class : One operator-visible reason DocsFab declined to pretend the work was done, paired with a next action or a named missing input.

Related: Stop Classes in DocsFab

Synthesis : The governed comparison of selected source-thread claims that creates a new candidate model version, inconsistency report, and merge receipt.

T

Task : A canonical request that identifies the desired documentation outcome, requester, repository revision, model version, workflow, and authority. This is the runtime sense, written as Task in the Task → Workflow → Step contract.

W

Workflow : A versioned sequence or graph of governed steps used to produce a bounded documentation outcome.

Related: Workflow Contracts in DocsFab

Use the following pages for the concepts and contracts that appear most often in this glossary:

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