Cortex Glossary

Definitions of Wire and Cortex terms readers will encounter across the docs. Normative definitions live in Reference/terminology.md; this page is a quick-reference pointer.

On this page
  1. Core substrate
  2. Downstream Logos
  3. Wire language
  4. Composition
  5. Runtime
  6. Doc kinds
  7. See also

Cortex Glossary

Quick-reference terms. Normative and complete definitions live in Reference/terminology.md; this page exists for casual lookup and orientation.

Core substrate

  • Cortex — the standalone durable runtime substrate described in these docs.
  • Algebra — the pure topology and relation layer: vertices, edges, overlay, connect, and law-bearing graph operations.
  • Wire — the source language for authoring executable topology. Its compiled circuit form is the artifact Pulse executes. Grammar: Reference/Wire/grammar.md.
  • Pulse — the durable runtime that executes Circuits. See Architecture/06-pulse-runtime.md.
  • Capability — executor registration and native pure-executor capability surfaces available to execution.
  • Artifact reference — a runtime value that points to a durable artifact owned by a consumer or host boundary.

Downstream Logos

  • Logos library — the downstream structured reasoning library above Cortex. It owns reusable LLM-shaped catalogs, not runtime authority.
  • Logos.Archetypes — the canonical epistemological archetype catalog: Logos, Sophia, Techne, Episteme, Kritikos, Themis, and Poiesis.
  • Logos.Thought — one bounded model-mediated cognitive evaluation bound to a graph node; not a durable persona.
  • Logos.Memory — cognitive memory: retrieval, ranking, packing, compaction, source selection, topological context, and memory tools.
  • Logos.Patterns — reusable reasoning-program catalogs such as DeepReport.
  • Logos archetype — the Logos.Archetypes.Logos archetype for discursive reason, argument, and symbolic reasoning.
  • Logos activation bundle — the operational implementation of an archetype: prompt discipline, retrieval corpus, embedding spaces, tools, memory policy, evaluation criteria, and runtime contract.

Wire language

  • Contract — a named typed interface that flows through a port.
  • Port — a slot on a node, typed by a contract. Input (<-) or output (->). May be labeled.
  • Port key — (direction, contract, label), the identity tuple => matches on.
  • Label — part of a port’s routing identity, not a cosmetic name.
  • Node — an explicit graph vertex with typed ports and an implementation body.
  • Executor — a registered recipe that turns inputs into outputs.
  • Configured executor value — executor authority plus inert config, reusable in node bodies.
  • Sum group — output-port form -> A | B where exactly one variant fires.
  • Wire value — a node, a composed graph expression, or the empty wire ().
  • Port-boundary — a wire’s currently unconnected input and output ports.
  • File-return expression — the last expression in a .wire file, which becomes the file’s value.
  • Evaluation-boundary check — the runnable-wire gate: every singular input must be connected exactly once.

Composition

  • <> overlay — set union of nodes and edges.
  • => connect — port-key-matched edge addition over boundaries.
  • // merge — right-biased shallow record merge.
  • ++ concat — string and list concatenation.
  • | sum — output-port mutual-exclusion constructor.
  • @ application — stages registered executor authority with config: @qualified.name { ... }.

Runtime

  • Envelope — the runtime carrier for a value: { contract, mediaType, producer, value, provenance }.
  • Payload kind — the runtime category of a contract’s value: json, markdown, text, table, or artifact_ref.
  • Contract registry — the authoritative contract definitions used for validation, decoding, and rendering.
  • Provenance — the runtime record of where a value came from.
  • Rewrite — a bounded topology edit admitted during runtime. See Architecture/07-rewrites-and-materialization.md.
  • Gas — structural-change budget consumed by rewrites.
  • Topological memory — downstream Logos.Memory context built from settled upstream Pulse state.

Doc kinds

  • Canonical chapter — NN-* file under Architecture/. Part of the architecture book.
  • Reference — normative spec under Reference/. Consultable, rule-precise.
  • ADR — NNNN-* file under ADRs/. One committed design decision.
  • Epic — long-running engineering initiative in Roadmap/Epics/.
  • Plan — implementation plan under Roadmap/Plans/.
  • Research note — dated synthesis/design memo under Research-notes/{scope}/.
  • Experiment — controlled run under Experiments/{scope}/, started from an active epic or plan.
  • Manuscript — paper under Publications/paper-N-*/manuscript.md.

See also