Skills/glossary/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

glossary

Use when adding, changing, or removing a glossary entry (maintain), or building a new glossary for an existing project from its prose surface (bootstrap). The skill applies the rules in docs/glossary-convention.md — it restates none of them. maintain keeps the existing user-any-time / boss-record-reality write authority and adds a conformance check; bootstrap is user-only (high-context multi-agent work; boss may recommend it via bounce-back but never runs it).

glossary — build and maintain a project's glossary

Violating the letter of these rules is violating the spirit.

Overview

A project's glossary pins canonical nomenclature so terminology does not drift over time, and so LLM-driven work reuses the established term for a concept instead of coining a fresh synonym each session. ../docs/glossary-convention.md owns the rules — the three-field format, the reading obligation, the record-reality write-rule, and the glossary-as-source-of-truth declaration. This skill is the procedure that applies those rules; it restates none of them.

It carries two procedures. maintain adds, changes, or removes a single entry under a conformance check. bootstrap builds a fresh glossary for a project that has none, by fanning out read-only glossary-extractor agents over the project's prose surface and synthesising their observations into conforming entries.

When to Use / Skipping

Triggers:

• maintain — a term is to be added, changed, or removed in an existing glossary, by the user any time, or by boss to record reality (a term already in consistent use, or a drift boss just resolved).
• bootstrap — a project has terminology to pin but no glossary (paths.glossary unset, or naming an empty file), and the user invokes the build.

Skip or refuse:

• maintain asked with no paths.glossary slot set: there is nowhere to write. Stop and instruct the user to set paths.glossary (see ../docs/profile-schema.md § paths) first.
• bootstrap asked on a glossary that already has entries: do not clobber. Stop with the entry count and recommend maintain.
• bootstrap asked in a boss (autonomous) session: refuse. bootstrap is user-only; boss may recommend it via bounce-back but never runs it (see Authority).

Authority

maintain inherits the existing write authority unchanged (../docs/glossary-convention.md § Extending): the user any time; boss autonomously but only to record reality, never to invent. This skill adds the conformance check around that authority; it does not widen it.

bootstrap is user-only. It is high-context multi-agent work analogous to a fresh brainstorm, which boss bounces back rather than starting autonomously. In a boss session, recommend a bootstrap via bounce-back when a project lacks a glossary and drift is visible — do not run one.

Mode dispatch

On invocation, route on the argument:

• maintain (or add / change / remove) → the maintain procedure.
• bootstrap → the bootstrap procedure (user-only).

If the mode is ambiguous, ask once; do not guess.

The maintain procedure

1. Read the glossary and the convention. Read the file named by paths.glossary and ../docs/glossary-convention.md. If paths.glossary is unset, stop (see When to Use / Skipping).
2. Take the proposed entry. A canonical-term heading, an **Avoid:** line, and a definition — the user's, or (in a boss session bound by record-reality) the term already in consistent use.
3. Run the local conformance check against the proposed entry and the rest of the glossary:
   • the three-field shape the convention defines;
   • the definition is at most two sentences;
   • collision scan: the proposed canonical term must not already sit under another entry's Avoid, and a proposed Avoid synonym must not be another entry's canonical term. On any failure, REJECT — name the violated rule, do not write the entry, and ask for a corrected one.
4. Run the stale-usage sweep (on add / change / rename): grep the prose surface for the old canonical term (change/rename) and for each Avoid synonym, and report the hits as drift the user may want to fix. The sweep reports; it does not block — guidance, not enforcement.
5. Write the conforming entry UNSTAGED. Add, edit, or remove the entry in the glossary file, preserving the flat per-term-block shape so the diff stays line-wise clean. Leave it unstaged for review.
6. Hand back to the user for review. In a boss session, the record-reality discipline governs whether the write was permitted at all (boss never coins).

The bootstrap procedure (user-only)

1. Guard. Read paths.glossary. If it names a file that already has entries, stop with the count and recommend maintain. If the slot is unset, continue, and note the build will also propose setting the slot (see ../docs/profile-schema.md § paths).
2. Partition the prose surface into slices — the readable prose of the project: docs/, README.md, the design ledger (if paths.design_ledger is set), the spec directory. One slice per coherent group, sized so a single agent can sweep it.
3. Fan out one glossary-extractor per slice. Dispatch the read-only agent (agents/glossary-extractor.md) with the carrier: the slice and the extraction task. Agents do not nest; the skill curates each carrier.
4. Merge and cluster. Collect the reports. Cluster variants that name the same concept across slices, summing frequencies.
5. Synthesise. For each cluster:
   • a clear cluster (one dominant variant) → auto-include it as a conforming entry: canonical heading = the dominant variant, Avoid = the other variants, a ≤2-sentence definition drawn from the observed usage;
   • a contested cluster (≥2 comparable variants) → surface it to the user with the variants, frequencies, and locations, and ask which is canonical. Never decide a contested canonical yourself.
6. Handle the unresolved. A contested cluster the user does not resolve is left OUT of the glossary and noted as deferred. Never coin a term to fill a gap.
7. Assemble UNSTAGED. Write the conforming glossary to paths.glossary (proposing the slot value if it was unset), in the convention's flat per-term-block format. Leave it unstaged for review.

Iron Law

THE CONVENTION OWNS THE RULES; THIS SKILL ONLY APPLIES THEM — RESTATE NOTHING.
A NON-CONFORMING ENTRY IS REJECTED, NOT WRITTEN.
BOOTSTRAP IS USER-ONLY. NEVER COIN A TERM — RECORD REALITY.

Handoff Contract

Direction	Carrier
user → glossary (maintain)	the proposed entry + the operation (add / change / remove)
user → glossary (bootstrap)	the build request
glossary → glossary-extractor (bootstrap)	one prose slice + the extraction task
boss → user (bounce-back)	a recommendation to run a bootstrap; boss never runs one itself

Common Rationalisations

Excuse	Reality
"The entry is obviously fine, skip the conformance check"	The check is the skill's whole reason to exist over hand-editing. Run it.
"Two variants are close; I'll pick the more frequent as canonical"	A contested cluster is a nomenclature judgement that belongs to the user. Surface it; do not decide it.
"The concept clearly needs a term, I'll coin one"	The glossary records reality, never invents. An unresolved concept is left out and deferred.
"boss is running and the project has no glossary, I'll bootstrap it"	bootstrap is user-only. Recommend it via bounce-back; do not run it.
"I'll restate the format here so the skill is self-contained"	The convention is the single source for the rules. Cite it; restating it is the cross-doc drift this split exists to prevent.
"The stale-usage hits should block the write"	The sweep is guidance, not enforcement. Report the drift; write the entry regardless.

Red Flags — STOP

• About to write a non-conforming entry instead of rejecting it.
• About to pick a canonical term for a genuinely contested cluster.
• About to coin a term for a concept that has no observed term.
• About to run a bootstrap in a boss / autonomous session.
• About to restate the convention's format or write-rule in this file.
• About to clobber a populated glossary with a bootstrap.

Cross-references

• Rules (the single source): ../docs/glossary-convention.md — format, reading obligation, write-rule, glossary-as-SoT. This skill applies these; it restates none.
• Slot semantics: ../docs/profile-schema.md § paths — the paths.glossary slot (set ⇒ standing reading for every role; unset ⇒ no-op).
• Agent dispatched: agents/glossary-extractor.md — read-only per-slice prose extraction, fanned out in bootstrap.
• Glossary instance (dogfood): ../docs/glossary.md — this plugin's own glossary.
• boss write authority: ../boss/SKILL.md — the record-reality rule for the only autonomous glossary writer, and the bootstrap bounce-back.