Glossary (v1alpha1)

Status: draft / alpha, non-normative. Normative definitions are in the specification; this glossary summarizes them.

Term	Definition
A2A	Agent2Agent protocol for communication between agents. AWP references A2A endpoints as remote agents.
Action	An operation with an effect outside the model: a tool call, a command step or a message to a remote agent. Model invocations are not actions.
Action group	A named set of action identifiers declared in spec.actionGroups, usable wherever an action identifier is accepted.
Action identifier	Dotted name of an action, for example github.search_code, shell.execute, a2a.security-agent.send.
Actor	Who performs or triggers something in an execution: agent, human, runtime or system.
Agent	A configured use of a model with instructions, tools, permissions and limits. Also the kind Agent for reusable agent definitions.
Agent reference	An entry in spec.agents that points to a published Agent manifest by name, exact version and optional digest.
Approval	A decision by an authenticated human that allows a gated action or approval step to proceed.
Audit event	A structured record of something that happened in an execution, with a standard envelope and type (workflow.*, agent.*, tool.*, policy.*, approval.*, artifact.*).
Budget	Limits on cost, steps, duration, tokens, tool calls, retries and concurrency.
Conformance profile	A named set of requirements a runtime can implement: core, governance, audit, security, mcp, a2a.
Conformance statement	A document published by a runtime declaring the API version and profiles it conforms to and its limitations.
Data class	One of public, internal, confidential, personal, restricted, sensitive, secret; an organizational vocabulary, not a legal definition.
Declassification	Declaring an output with a lower data class than the data it was derived from; always recorded.
Decision record	A structured explanation of a consequential action in terms of evidence and policy checks. Not chain-of-thought.
Digest	<algorithm>:<hex> hash, for manifests computed over the JCS serialization without integrity, signature and provenance fields.
Environment	The organizational context of an execution (for example development, staging, production) with its own autonomy level.
Execution	One run of a workflow, identified by an execution identifier (awp-exec-<ULID>).
Expression	${{ ... }} reference to an input, a step output or execution facts in expression-enabled fields.
Fail closed	Rejecting or denying when something cannot be verified or determined, instead of proceeding.
Kind	The type of a manifest: Workflow, Agent or Policy.
Manifest	An AWP document with apiVersion, kind, metadata and spec.
MCP	Model Context Protocol for connecting agents to tools and resources. AWP references MCP servers as tool sources.
Permissions	The permissions object that grants or denies actions and restricts network, filesystem, secrets and environments. Permissions grant; policies only restrict.
Policy	A rule set that denies operations or requires approval under conditions. Also the kind Policy.
Policy shorthand	Well-known policy settings in spec.policies (git, pullRequest, merge, production) that expand to deny rules.
Remote agent	An agent run by another system and reached through A2A.
Reproducibility record	A record produced at the end of an execution that identifies the workflow, agents, models, prompts, tools, images, policies, inputs and artifacts it used.
Risk level	low, medium, high or critical: an organizational risk declaration with recommended default treatments.
Runtime	Software that validates and executes manifests and enforces their rules.
Secret reference	secretRef: <name>: a pointer to a secret declared in spec.secrets. Secret values never appear in manifests.
Separation of duties	Rules that prevent the same human from both initiating or performing and approving an action.
Step	A node of the workflow graph: agent, command or approval.
Tool source	An entry in an agent’s tools: an MCP server (type: mcp) or a runtime built-in (type: builtin).
Well-known action	Reserved action identifiers with defined meaning, for example git.merge, production.deploy, external.communication.
Workflow	The kind Workflow: agents, tools, steps, limits and governance of a unit of agentic work.