Crewship concepts and glossary

Crewship separates the place where work lives from the people and automations that perform it. This is the canonical map from names used by the product to their meaning, product surfaces, and nearest look-alikes. A dash means that the object has no dedicated surface; manifest availability includes management through crewship apply.

Canonical terminology

Term	Definition	Surfaces (UI / CLI / API / manifest)	Commonly confused with
Workspace	The top-level tenant and authorization boundary that owns members, crews, resources, and automation.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Workspace`	Crew is the shared runtime boundary; project groups delivery work without granting access.
Crew	A team and runtime boundary whose agents share a container, network policy, and crew memory.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Crew`	Agent is one worker in the crew; crew template is a reusable deployment source, not a running crew.
Agent	A configured worker that executes assigned prompts and tools inside a crew runtime.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Agent`	Crew owns the shared runtime; an agent is not a container, and LEAD is an agent role rather than another object.
Mission	A durable, observable unit of multi-step work that owns tasks and may pause or finish.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Routine stores repeatable invocation; pipeline connects typed stages; a mission is the execution being tracked.
Routine	A saved executable workflow invoked manually or by a cron or webhook trigger.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Routine`	Mission is a tracked execution; pipeline is a stage graph with durable transitions, not the saved triggerable routine.
Pipeline	A definition and runner for ordered stages, schedules, webhooks, and durable human waitpoints.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Routine invokes saved agent work; mission records work in progress; a pipeline controls stage-to-stage orchestration.
Pipeline alias	A stable alternate name that resolves to a pipeline without copying its definition.	— / Yes / Yes / —	A pipeline contains the stages; an alias is only an indirection to one pipeline.
Memory tier	One of the agent, crew-shared, or workspace scopes that controls who can recall stored memory.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	A workspace or crew is an ownership boundary; the memory tier is the visibility scope of a memory item.
Project	A grouping of related issues with delivery status, milestones, and rollups.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Project`	A repository checkout is code on disk; a workspace is a tenant and a crew executes work.
Skill	A reusable `SKILL.md` instruction bundle importable and assignable to agents.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Skill`	A recipe is structured reusable procedure data; a routine can execute, while a skill only supplies instructions.
Recipe	A reusable structured procedure that can be discovered and attached to agent work.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Recipe`	A skill is a `SKILL.md` bundle; a routine is an executable saved workflow.
Connector	A named external-service connection definition referenced by crew or agent integration bindings.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `Connector`	A credential holds secret material; an integration binds an endpoint and connector configuration to runtime use.
Keeper	The credential-governance gate that evaluates sensitive access and may require escalation.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Harbormaster holds a human decision; Keeper evaluates policy and is not the credential store or proxy.
Harbormaster	The human-in-the-loop approval queue for dangerous or policy-gated actions.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Keeper evaluates whether escalation is required; Harbormaster persists and resolves the human approval.
Paymaster	The usage ledger and budget service for model and run spending.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Provider billing is external; Paymaster records and enforces Crewship budgets but is not the provider invoice.
Journal	The append-oriented event spine that records run and system activity for audit and views.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	Agent memory is recalled context; the journal is an event record and not a checkpoint or chat transcript.
Waitpoint	A durable paused pipeline state that waits for a human decision or external continuation.	Yes / Yes / Yes / —	A process sleep requires a live process; a waitpoint persists while no agent loop is running.
Crew template	A server-side reusable crew blueprint that deploys a crew under a chosen name.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `CrewTemplate`	`Crew` declaratively owns a crew row; `CrewTemplate` deploys a blueprint and does not round-trip the resulting crew.
Workflow template	A reusable issue workflow definition containing states and transitions.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `WorkflowTemplate`	A pipeline orchestrates executable stages; a workflow template defines issue lifecycle states.
Triage rule	A workspace rule that matches incoming issues and applies routing actions such as labels or assignment.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `TriageRule`	A saved view filters issues for display; a triage rule mutates routing metadata when it matches.
Saved view	A stored private or shared issue filter and presentation configuration.	Yes / Yes / Yes / `SavedView`	A triage rule acts on incoming issues; a saved view only selects and presents existing issues.
Hook	A named outbound webhook configuration for delivering matching Crewship events.	— / Yes / Yes / `Hook`	A pipeline webhook can trigger execution; a hook delivers events outward and does not define pipeline stages.

The manifest also exposes supporting kinds such as Issue, Label, Milestone, RecurringIssue, FeatureFlag, InstanceSetting, and Integration. Their authoritative schemas live in the manifest reference; they do not introduce alternate meanings for the terms above.

Deprecated terminology

Deprecated spelling	Replacement	Since	Why
`COORDINATOR`	`LEAD`	Deprecated 2026-04-16; retired in v0.1	The former workspace-wide agent role no longer exists in the public role model. The API, the CLI and every manifest validator refuse the literal and name `LEAD` as the replacement; UI, CLI prose, API schemas, and manifests all use `LEAD`.

Published prose must not introduce COORDINATOR outside this replacement record and the manifest pages that document the exact legacy compatibility boundary. scripts/docs-surface-check enforces that deny-list.

Named roles and services

Term	What it is	What it is not	Reference
Keeper	The credential-governance gate that evaluates risky access and can require escalation.	Not the credential store or the sidecar proxy.	Keeper guide
Quartermaster	The credential delivery and readiness layer that resolves bindings for a run.	Not an approval authority; Keeper or a human supplies governance.	Credentials guide
Harbormaster	The human-in-the-loop approval queue for dangerous or gated actions.	Not an autonomous policy evaluator.	Approvals API
Lookout	In-process safety checks for prompt injection, tool arguments, output shape, and redaction.	Not a firewall or a replacement for container isolation.	Lookout guide
Paymaster	The cost ledger and budget view for model and run spending.	Not a billing provider or a hard substitute for provider quotas.	Paymaster guide
Cartographer	The checkpoint and mission-history service for restoring, forking, and inspecting progress.	Not source-control history.	Checkpoints API

How the pieces fit

An agent receives a task in a crew. The crew supplies the runtime and shared memory; the workspace supplies identity and global resources. A routine or issue can start the run, Keeper and Harbormaster can govern sensitive steps, Quartermaster supplies approved credentials, Paymaster records cost, and the Journal records what happened.

The boundaries that matter in practice

Workspace, crew, and project

Use a workspace for tenant-wide ownership: members, credentials, global skills, and policy. Use a crew for an execution boundary: its agents share a container, network posture, and crew memory. Use a project when the question is delivery status across related issues. A project can contain work assigned to several crews; it does not grant those crews access to each other’s containers or memory.

Agent, lead, and mission

An agent is the worker that receives a prompt and uses tools. A lead is still an agent, but its role permits coordination and delegation; it is not automatically a manager with unrestricted authority. A mission is the durable execution record around multi-step work. If work pauses at a waitpoint, the mission remains inspectable; it does not require an agent process to stay alive indefinitely.

Routine, issue, and skill

An issue describes work and its lifecycle. A routine describes repeatable execution and its triggers. Either can lead to an agent run, but they answer different questions: “what needs doing?” versus “how and when should it run?” A skill supplies reusable instructions to an eligible agent; it is not a routine trigger and it does not itself execute.

The named services in one run

The named roles are easier to remember as a sequence:

Lookout checks the execution boundary and tool-shaped inputs in process.
Quartermaster resolves which credential binding can be delivered to the run.
Keeper evaluates whether that access is allowed, denied, or needs escalation.
Harbormaster holds the human decision when policy requires one.
Paymaster records model usage and cost as the run proceeds.
Cartographer records checkpoints and recoverable mission structure.

None of these roles is the agent. They are control-plane services around agent work, which is why a failed agent response and a denied credential request appear as different kinds of events in the Journal.

Get Started

Guides

Security

Configuration

Manifest Reference

Crewship concepts and glossary

Crewship concepts and glossary

Canonical terminology

Deprecated terminology

Named roles and services

How the pieces fit

The boundaries that matter in practice

Workspace, crew, and project

Agent, lead, and mission

Routine, issue, and skill

The named services in one run

​Crewship concepts and glossary

​Canonical terminology

​Deprecated terminology

​Named roles and services

​How the pieces fit

​The boundaries that matter in practice

​Workspace, crew, and project

​Agent, lead, and mission

​Routine, issue, and skill

​The named services in one run

Crewship concepts and glossary

Canonical terminology

Deprecated terminology

Named roles and services

How the pieces fit

The boundaries that matter in practice

Workspace, crew, and project

Agent, lead, and mission

Routine, issue, and skill

The named services in one run