Glossary

The words this site uses, one name per thing, newest first. Not a tutorial.

You said you want shared terms for all of this. These are the ones the site uses, so that when a page says “channel” it means one specific thing. The first group is the newer vocabulary. The second is the established set, kept to one line each.

Newer

Agent view. claude agents. Every running session on one screen, with the ones that need your input marked. Agent view

Cross-session messaging. Sessions on the same machine, or your sessions on other machines, can list and message each other. Cross-session messaging

Dynamic workflow. A script Claude writes that orchestrates many subagents, rerunnable. For audits, migrations, cross-checked research. Workflows

Channel. An MCP server that pushes messages from Telegram, Discord, or iMessage into a running session and carries the reply back. Needs claude.ai auth, so not on Bedrock. Channels

Routine. A scheduled or event-triggered run in the cloud, so it runs when your Mac is off. Distinct from desktop scheduled tasks, which run on your machine. Routines

Auto memory. Notes Claude writes for itself about your corrections and preferences, per repository, loaded every session. Separate from CLAUDE.md, which you write. Auto memory

Prompt cache. The cached prefix of a session. A model switch or an effort change starts a fresh cache and forces a full uncached turn. Prompt caching

Fork. A subagent that inherits the parent’s whole conversation instead of starting clean. Subagents

Output style. A system-prompt swap. Concise is the one you want. Output styles

Goal. /goal. A completion condition a separate evaluator re-checks after every turn. Goal

Established

Subagent. A separate Claude with its own context and tool list, defined in .claude/agents/, reporting a summary back. Subagents

Skill. A SKILL.md that packages a workflow or domain knowledge, loaded on demand or invoked as /name. Skills

Hook. A shell command at a fixed lifecycle point. Runs every time, unlike CLAUDE.md. Hooks

Compaction. Summarising older conversation to free context. /compact <instructions> to steer it. Context window

Headless. claude -p "...", no interactive prompt, for scripts and schedulers. Headless

Worktree. A second checkout of the same repo so two sessions do not collide. --worktree. Worktrees

Permission mode. How much Claude asks before acting. Auto mode is the default on paid claude.ai plans; Manual is the default on Bedrock. Permission modes

launchd. macOS’s service manager. Starts things at login, restarts them when they die. The reason an agent survives a reboot. launchd.info

Tailnet. Your private Tailscale network. Tailscale