Glossary
The words, in plain language.
What the terms in the app and on this site mean. Each entry has its own link.
- Agent
- An AI tool that can take actions on your Mac, not just answer questions: run commands, read and edit files, fetch web pages. Claude Code and Codex are agents.
- Assistant
- An app with an AI assistant inside it that acts on your behalf — reading your contacts, calendar or files and sending on your say-so. Muse is one. It is an agent by any useful definition, but nothing on your Mac configured it and Mockingbyrd's guard cannot see what it does, so the Agent Roster lists it separately from the agents you set up yourself.
- Allow list
- The entries in an agent's settings that pre-approve actions, so they run without a prompt. It tends to grow one approval at a time.
- Connector (MCP server)
- A plug-in that gives an agent new tools, such as access to email, a calendar or a database. Connectors configured in a web app live server-side, so the list on disk is a floor, not the whole picture.
- Deny rule
- A settings entry that forbids an action. A deny rule matches a text pattern, so a broader grant elsewhere can step around it. See subsuming grant.
- Doctrine
- The set of rules Mockingbyrd scores your Mac against. Each rule is a shell probe you can read, edit, weight, disable or replace.
- Drift
- A change to a configuration file you approved, such as a hook edited overnight. Mockingbyrd fingerprints the files that matter and reports drift as an event.
- Egress
- Data leaving your Mac, for example through
curl, a web fetch or a connector. Broad read access plus pre-approved egress is the combination that turns a mistake into a leak. - Fingerprint
- A short checksum of a file's contents. If the file changes, the fingerprint changes, which is how drift is detected.
- Guard
- Mockingbyrd's enforcement layer. It reads the command that will actually run and the paths it touches, and blocks it or asks you, below the permission list.
- Hook
- A script an agent runs at a set moment. A PreToolUse hook runs before every tool call and can refuse it. Mockingbyrd's guard is a hook.
- Interpreter
- A program that runs code handed to it, such as
python3,nodeorosascript. An interpreter with a wildcard grant can do anything a shell can. - Nerd Mode and Intuitive
- Two views of the same scan. Nerd Mode shows probes, weights and evidence; Intuitive uses plain language. The mode changes the vocabulary, not the score.
- Probe
- The small shell check behind a rule. It reports the evidence it found, not just pass or fail.
- Roster
- Mockingbyrd's map of every agent on the Mac and what each one can reach, built only from what is on disk.
- Rule pack
- A bundle of rules that make up a doctrine. Mockingbyrd ships with one; you can write your own and the score follows.
- Subsuming grant
- A grant broad enough to do everything a deny rule forbids. If
sqlite3is denied butpython3 -c *is allowed, Python can open the same database. The deny rule is advice. - T0 store (origin tier)
- An original data store, such as the Messages or Mail database, that nothing should need to open directly. The rule "never open a T0 store" protects the originals.
- Token Ledger
- Token use and API-equivalent cost by model, project and week, rebuilt from session logs already on disk. It is a sense of proportion, not a bill.
- Tool call
- A single action an agent asks to take, such as running a shell command or reading a file. The guard inspects each one before it runs.
- Wildcard grant
- An allow-list entry ending in
*, which approves every command that starts the same way.Bash(git diff:*)is narrow;Bash(python3 -c *)is not.