Glossary
Short definitions for CELLAS and Intent Computing terms used on this site.
Overview
Terms below match how CELLAS docs and CLI messages use them. For Frozen schema IDs and URNs, use the monorepo specifications.
Concepts
CELLAS — Open-source reference implementation of Intent Computing for documentation systems (Runtime, Engine, CLI, Plugin SDK, Conformance).
Intent Computing — Approach where systems execute from explicit intent under deterministic contracts with auditable evidence.
First PASS — Happy path for new developers: create a project, install, cellas verify, cellas certify → certification level PASS.
Runtime — Deterministic execution environment and configuration binding.
Engine — Reference execution engine that produces candidate runs and artifacts.
Plugin — Packaged capability loaded under CELLAS contracts (manifest + entrypoint).
Conformance — Evidence, suites, profiles, and certification pipeline.
Certification / PASS — Result of cellas certify against a profile when mandatory checks succeed.
Profile — YAML (or equivalent) definition of suites and expectations under conformance/profiles/.
Evidence — Artifacts, manifests, and digests produced or verified by the pipeline. Historical evidence under samples/reference-execution-001/ is immutable.
Digest — Integrity hash bound to artifacts; verify failures on mismatch.
create-cellas — Official project initializer (pnpm create cellas).
Frozen — Read-only specifications and historical samples that must not be reinterpreted or mutated in place.
Example
pnpm exec cellas certify
# certificationLevel: PASS → First PASS succeeded for the project fixturesCLI
Most glossary terms surface in CLI help and JSON output:
pnpm exec cellas verify --help
pnpm exec cellas certify --help