Glossary

Protocol

A fixed contract that defines valid structure and behavior.

Conceptual Primitives (SMALL Acronym)

SMALL stands for Schema, Manifest, Artifact, Lineage, Lifecycle. These five conceptual primitives form the protocol's intellectual foundation.

Schema (Conceptual)

Defines the structure and validation rules for all data. Schemas are the contracts that govern what is valid. Every artifact conforms to a schema. Validation is non-optional.

Manifest (Conceptual)

Declares what exists and what is intended. The manifest describes the state of the world: what artifacts exist, what goals are declared, what constraints apply. It is the source of truth for project intent.

Artifact (Conceptual)

A concrete, versioned output governed by schemas. Artifacts are the tangible products of work-files, commits, test results. They are addressable, verifiable, and immutable once finalized.

Lineage (Conceptual)

Tracks provenance and dependencies between artifacts. Lineage answers: where did this come from? What depended on it? Lineage enables auditability and reproducibility.

Lifecycle (Conceptual)

Governs state transitions and workflow phases. Lifecycle defines the valid states an artifact can be in and the transitions between them: pending, in_progress, completed, blocked, etc.

Execution Artifacts (v1.0.0)

In v1.0.0, the SMALL conceptual model is operationalized via five canonical YAML files stored in .small/. These are not a renaming of the acronym-they are the concrete execution state that implements the abstract SMALL model.

Intent

intent.small.yml - Human-owned artifact declaring the goal of the work and success criteria. Implements the Manifest primitive.

Constraints

constraints.small.yml - Human-owned artifact declaring hard limits that agents must respect. Implements Schema governance.

Plan

plan.small.yml - Agent-owned, disposable list of tasks. May be replaced at any time. Implements the Lifecycle primitive.

Progress

progress.small.yml - Agent-owned, append-only log of execution evidence. Immutable once written. Implements the Lineage primitive.

Handoff

handoff.small.yml - Shared artifact providing a deterministic resume point. The only valid entrypoint for agents resuming work. Implements Artifact handoff.

Technical Terms

JSON Schema

A JSON Schema that defines what an artifact may contain. All SMALL execution artifacts validate against JSON Schema Draft 2020-12.

Invariants

Rules that must always be true (enforced by lint). Non-negotiable constraints on the protocol.

Verification

Machine-checkable proof that artifacts and invariants are valid.

ReplayId

A deterministic, content-addressed identifier derived from intent, plan, and constraints. Enables reproducible execution fingerprints.