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Glossary

This glossary defines the terms used across the Anyy wiki. Terms are kept short here; the linked concept pages cover behavior and workflow details.

Agent Loop​

The inner loop that turns a user message plus assembled context into model requests, tool calls, and final assistant output. In Anyy, this loop is a small kernel under internal/agent; resident runtime concerns such as sessions, persistence, approvals, tools, gateway delivery, channels, and compaction live outside it.

Approval​

An explicit runtime gate for an operation that needs user consent or policy confirmation. Approval may be a direct confirmation, a hook decision, or an approved ChangePlan for higher-risk work.

Artifact​

A file-like object tracked by Anyy. Artifacts can be generated media, channel attachments, trusted local files, or supporting files from skills. The metadata lives in state.db; bytes may live in private blob storage under the profile home or in an external trusted path.

Background Job​

An async child run or managed process owned by a session. It continues after the initiating reply, can be inspected or cancelled, and reports results back through the gateway.

ChangePlan​

A structured proposal for a risky or state-changing operation. A ChangePlan records what will change, affected services, validation steps, rollback steps, an expiry, and a hash. The runtime must see an approved plan ID with a matching hash before it executes operations that require a ChangePlan.

Channel​

A messaging adapter that connects an external surface to the resident runtime. Examples include Telegram, Slack, Discord, Weixin, Email, SMS, IRC, LINE, WhatsApp, Feishu, DingTalk, QQ Bot, and Facebook Messenger. Each channel maps incoming platform identities to Anyy sessions and routes replies back to the same platform.

Context Reference​

A structured pointer to context that should be expanded for a turn, rather than pasting all content directly into a prompt. Context references let Anyy include files, artifacts, session material, and runtime facts while keeping context assembly explicit and inspectable.

Cron​

Resident scheduled work. A cron job stores a prompt plus schedule in profile state; the gateway runs it later under the configured role and workspace.

Delegation​

Running work in a child session or background job while the parent session stays usable. Delegation is used for long tasks, background agents, and workflows that need their own session state but should still report back to the initiating conversation.

Gateway​

The resident Anyy runtime. The gateway owns sessions, queues, runtime state, channels, background jobs, MCP/tool visibility, approvals, and delivery. Clients such as the TUI, dashboard, and one-shot CLI talk to it over the local RPC boundary.

Anyy Home​

The directory that contains one profile's config.yaml, state.db, secrets/, memory/, skills/, logs/, raw/, workspace/, gateway socket, and runtime metadata.

Heartbeat​

A lightweight background status mechanism used to record that runtime services are alive and to surface health in status and doctor output.

Memory​

Durable facts and preferences that outlive one conversation. Anyy stores memory in local files and indexes it in state so future sessions can recall the right material. Memory is separate from session history: session history is one conversation; memory is cross-session recall.

MCP​

Model Context Protocol integration. Anyy can connect to configured MCP servers, discover tools, and expose selected server tools through mcp-* toolsets.

Profile​

An isolated Anyy identity with its own home directory, config, state database, secrets, sessions, memory, skills, roles, cron jobs, channels, and gateway socket. Profiles are selected with --profile NAME, --profile-root PATH, ANYY_HOME, or the active-profile file.

Provider​

A model or capability backend configured under providers. Provider config resolves credentials, model IDs, fallback routing, and optional capabilities such as image generation or TTS.

Residency​

The pattern of running Anyy as a long-lived local service rather than as a single command invocation. Residency lets the same assistant stay reachable from TUI, CLI, dashboard, channels, cron, and background jobs.

Raw Log​

Per-session JSONL records stored under raw/YYYY/MM/DD/. Raw logs preserve recoverable detail for retention, inspection, and summary workflows while the state database keeps compact references.

Role​

A persona layer inside one profile. A Role can change tone, working style, and SOUL.md instructions for new sessions, but it does not change Anyy's product identity and does not own data, permissions, tools, or secrets. A profile can contain multiple roles.

Session​

One ongoing conversation. Sessions contain messages, tool calls, selected model metadata, summaries, lineage, and source/surface metadata. A session can be resumed, listed, branched, compressed, interrupted, or used as the parent for background work.

Secret Ref​

A configuration value such as secret:path/name, env:NAME, file:/absolute/path, or literal:value that tells Anyy how to resolve a credential without hard-coding it into the main config.

Skill​

A reusable instruction package, usually defined by a SKILL.md, that teaches Anyy how to perform a domain task. Skills can include supporting files and commands. They are loaded by the skills runtime only when relevant.

Tool​

A callable capability exposed to the assistant at runtime. Tools may read state, write files, run commands, manage tasks, search the web, inspect sessions, or interact with configured integrations. State-changing tools are governed by approval and ChangePlan rules.

Tool Governance​

The policy layer that decides whether visible tool calls run directly, require approval, require a ChangePlan, or are denied. It includes descriptor risk, overrides, and MCP server policy.

Toolset​

A named group of tools exposed together. Toolsets let a profile or session expose only the capabilities needed for the current task, such as web, sessions, memory, file, terminal, skills, messaging, or an mcp-* toolset.

Surface​

A place where a user interacts with Anyy, such as the TUI, one-shot CLI, dashboard, API client, cron job, or messaging channel.

Workspace​

Profile-local context and artifact storage. It is useful for files and outputs, but it is not a security boundary or permission model.