Glossary · Podium

Artifact: a packaged authoring unit (skill, agent, context, command, rule, hook, MCP-server registration, or extension type). Distinct from "build artifact" or "ML artifact."
Canonical artifact ID: the directory path under the registry root (e.g., finance/ap/pay-invoice). All references use this ID, optionally suffixed with @<semver> or @sha256:<hash>.
Domain: a node in the catalog hierarchy. Distinct from DNS domain or DDD domain.
Effective view: the composition of every layer (admin-defined, user-defined, and the workspace local overlay) visible to the caller's identity, in precedence order.
Harness: the AI runtime hosting an agent (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Claude Cowork, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Pi, Hermes, etc.). Used interchangeably with "host" when the runtime context matters. The full roster with documentation links is in Configure your harness.
Host: the MCP-speaking system that runs the Podium MCP server alongside its own runtime.
Layer: a unit of composition with a single source (Git repo, local filesystem path, or a custom source via LayerSourceProvider) and a visibility declaration. Admin-defined, user-defined, or the workspace local overlay.
Workspace local overlay: the workspace-scoped layer the LocalOverlayProvider reads from ${PODIUM_OVERLAY_PATH}, or from <workspace>/.podium/overlay/ when that directory exists. The consumer merges it client-side: the MCP server, podium sync, and the SDKs each apply it. Highest precedence in the caller's effective view.
Manifest: the ARTIFACT.md file specifically. Skills additionally have a SKILL.md carrying the agentskills.io-spec frontmatter and the agent-facing prose body; for skills the term "manifest" without qualification refers to ARTIFACT.md, and "skill manifest" refers to SKILL.md.
Marketplace: a git repository a harness imports to install plugins, holding a vendor manifest at a fixed location and per-plugin content. The extension, package, and tap formats are the analogous repository distributions for Gemini, Pi, and Hermes.
Marketplace output: a podium sync target of kind: marketplace: a git repository, a harness set, a plugin list, and a workflow. See Marketplace publishing.
Materialization: atomic write of a loaded artifact's content (manifest and bundled resources, after harness adapter translation) onto the host's filesystem.
MCP server (Podium MCP server): the in-process bridge binary the host runs.
Package: the on-disk directory containing an artifact's ARTIFACT.md (plus SKILL.md for skills) and bundled resources.
Plugin (publishing): a named bundle of selected artifacts, defined by a scope filter, rendered into each harness's distribution layout. The "plugin" usage for the in-process SPI extensions is unchanged; this entry distinguishes the publishing sense.
Registry: the service that ingests artifacts from layer sources and serves the catalog. It is backed by a folder on disk in the local tier, and by a Podium server in the single-node and clustered tiers.
Visibility: per-layer access declaration in the registry config: public, organization, OIDC groups, or explicit users. A user-defined layer is the exception: its visibility is the implicit users: [<registrant>], set automatically from the authenticated identity at registration and not widenable.
Session ID: optional UUID generated by the host per agent session; used by the registry for latest-resolution consistency and learn-from-usage reranking.
Effort hint: advisory metadata (effort_hint: low | medium | high | max) capturing authoring intent about reasoning budget.
Model class hint: advisory metadata (model_class_hint: nano | small | medium | large | frontier) capturing authoring intent about model capability tier.
Rule mode: the rule_mode field on a rule artifact (always, glob, auto, explicit); controls when the harness loads the rule.