Lexicon

The words used across every project. Use them exactly, even when a near synonym exists. If it is here, that is its name.

Reaching for a word that is not here, say so and stop. Do not invent one.

A part of the app that has a name in the code — a file, a folder, a class, a prop — is called by that name. Plain english says what a thing does; it never renames what a thing is. A description in place of a name cannot be looked up, cannot be searched for, and does not say whether one thing is meant or several.

Each project keeps its own lexicon for its own things — di, ji, ov. Nothing here is repeated there.

Who

• Jonathan — what and why. Direction, taste, decision.
• co — how and where. Reads, traces, proposes, and builds on a go. Never the collaborator, never Claude, never the assistant.

What we keep

• guide — a file in notes/guides/. Living reference; it holds decisions, not work.
• work note — a file in notes/work/. What is being done now.
• collection — one project's whole set of files: mono, di, ji, ov, ga, me.
• labels — the five lines at the top of a file: kind, title, description, tags, date.
• kind — the first label, saying what sort of file it is. Five exist: howto, specify, explain, arch, analyze.
• tag — a word in the labels saying what the file is about.
• brief — the description label. One sentence.
• map — a project's file map. Read it instead of globbing; update it when files move.
• index — the list of what a folder holds. Update it when files come or go.
• handoff — current status and the one Next action. Read first each session.
• code debt — open tasks as checkboxes. code debt paid holds the finished ones.
• journal — finished work, newest first.
• learn — past mistakes, never to be repeated. Twenty entries means time to distill.
• lexicon — this file.
• banned words — the words that mean nothing to Jonathan, each with the word to use instead.
• hook — a shell command that fires on its own, before a message or after a reply.
• shorthand — the short commands Jonathan types.

A turn

• turn — one message from Jonathan and the reply to it.
• session — one conversation, start to end. Co remembers nothing across two.
• propose — describe the plan and stop. A question is not an order.
• go — the word that turns a proposal into work. So do solve, impl, proceed, create, rewrite.
• think mode — the default: read, search, describe, propose. Nothing is changed.
• the gate — what co shows before acting, so a skipped check is visible.

Saying what is true

• I AM GUESSING — the exact words that must open any claim with no evidence behind it.
• evidence — a quoted line and its file, on its own line, after the plain words.
• visual confirmation — Jonathan looked at the screen and said what he saw. Never eyeball, never nod.
• mistrust point — a mark against trust, earned by stating a thing as fact without checking it, or by calling work done while steps remain.
• complaint — one row in the murk record: a reply Jonathan could not read. rate is complaints per 100 replies.

Verbs to use carefully

The banned words turned the right way round — the word to use, with the one it replaces.

• move — relocate: put it there and take it from here. Never copy, which is a different act.
• add, insert, write, update, put — changes to text or code, and a thing arriving somewhere. Never land, in any sense.
• do, perform — taking an action. Never land.
• implement, write — building a thing. Never land.
• done, complete — finished work. Never ship.
• write code — producing code. Never ship.
• place, include — putting a value where it goes. Never absorb.
• are built — code that exists. Never stands, which is a metaphor.
• sits, is drawn at — where a thing is on screen. Never stands there either.
• remain, unchanged — what is still there after a change. Never stands, in this or any other sense: the word is banned outright.
• path — where a file is, counting from the top of the repo. Never place, which keeps its everyday sense: said in one place, holds its place in the run.
• url — a target on the web. address — either one, when a link could carry either.
• content — everything a file holds. Never words, which means words and nothing else: the words looked for, the word on a line, the words a link reads as.
• register — tell the hits manager about a thing, so it knows where that thing stands and what it says. Never hand over, never hand to.
• stub out — empty bodies ready to fill. Never scaffold.
• button — a thing on screen that can be pressed. Never mark.
• decoration — something stamped on a thing to say what it is: a number beside a row, a slash across a folder. Never mark.
• gap — empty space. Never room.
• margin — the empty strip at an edge. Never band, bar, padding, gutter.
• highlight, highlighted — shown as picked, or shown as under the cursor. Never lit, never mark. Between these three, mark has no use left at all.
• hierarchy — how things sit inside each other. Never tree.
• details — the column at the side. Never panel.
• mock — a small made-up case that shows the fault. Never repro.
• detour — work off the path of the task. Never side-build.
• bug, problem — something wrong. Never liar.
• more work — the next step is heavier than this one. Never heavy lift.
• easy to misuse — the shape invites the mistake. Never footgun.
• plugin architecture — the shared storage interface. Never seam.
• main — belonging to every project. Never cross-project.
• drifted — moved off true over time. Never slid.
• who does what — the division of labor. Never split.
• useless cruft — what is there and does nothing. Never padded.