Dictionary#

Shared vocabulary for the MSX ecosystem: the terms that appear across this site, defined once so every reader — human or agent — reads them the same way. Ecosystem-specific terms link to the page that covers them in full.

Terms#

Agent#

An AI participant that reads the same documentation as a human and acts on the platform — opening issues, proposing pull requests, and reviewing changes. See Agentic Development.

Baseline#

The language-agnostic tier of the Coding Standards — naming, layout, functions, testing, and security — that every repository inherits regardless of language.

Capability#

An independently versioned thing the ecosystem builds and runs, documented by a spec and a design. See Capabilities.

CI/CD#

Continuous integration and continuous delivery — automated build, test, and release triggered on every change, so quality is checked before a change lands.

Coding Standard#

A prescriptive rule set for how code is written, per language or technology, enforced by a linter derived from it. See Coding Standards.

Continuous X#

The family of always-on practices — continuous integration, delivery, documentation, and AI — that keep work flowing in small increments. See Continuous Practices.

Design#

The how of a capability: the approach and the thing built, kept beside its spec. See the Documentation Model.

Directive#

Guidance written to be declarative and directional — it states what must be true and the direction to move, and leaves the how to the doer. Standards, principles, and specs are written as directives.

Initiative#

A product that makes the vision real — a framework, a set of reusable actions, or an editor extension. See Initiatives.

Least privilege#

Every identity — human, agent, or workflow — gets only the permissions it needs, and nothing more. See Principles → Least-privilege.

LTS#

Long-Term Support — a release line maintained with fixes for an extended period. We target current LTS runtimes rather than legacy editions.

Philosophy#

The most stable tier of belief — why we exist and what we value: easy, fast, safe. It informs the Principles.

Practice#

How we habitually act on a principle — concrete and evolving, such as pinning actions to a commit SHA. See Principles.

Principle#

Something that is always true for us — rarely changing, sitting between philosophy and practice. See Principles.

Pull request#

The unit of change and the decision point: proposed changes are reviewed, validated by CI, and approved before they merge. See PR Format.

SemVer#

Semantic Versioning — a MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH scheme where the number communicates the kind of change a release contains.

Shift Left#

Move quality gates as early as possible — editor, pre-commit, and pull request — because the later a problem is caught, the more it costs. See Principles → Shift Left.

Spec#

The why and what of a capability: the contract it fulfils, kept beside its design. See the Documentation Model.

Vision#

The why of the whole ecosystem — make software delivery easy, fast, and safe. See the Vision.

Ways of Working#

The shared conventions for how work happens — workflow, issues, reviews, and the norms every contributor and agent follows. See Ways of Working.

Zensical#

The static-site generator that builds this documentation from Markdown and publishes it to GitHub Pages.