# Raven Domain Glossary ## Raven Task The single user-visible unit of work. A Raven Task has one continuing identity from the initial request through research, drafting, steering, verification, and completion, regardless of how many agents or tools contribute internally. ## Outcome The kind of useful result the user wants from a Raven Task. The four first-class Outcomes are **Research**, **General Writing**, **Academic Writing**, and **Learning**. ## Artifact The useful content produced by a Raven Task, such as findings, an outline, a draft, an explanation, a study guide, or a final document. An Artifact evolves during the Task rather than appearing only at the end. ## Checkpoint A user-visible version of the Artifact emitted while the Raven Task is still active. A Checkpoint is useful on its own, records the Task's current understanding, and gives the user an opportunity to steer subsequent work. ## Steering Revision A user correction or change of emphasis applied to the existing Raven Task. A Steering Revision preserves prior evidence and Checkpoints and does not restart the Task. ## Lead A candidate Raven has located but not inspected. A Lead records where something might be, never what it says. Discovery produces Leads; only inspection turns one into a Source. A Lead can never carry a Claim, appear in an Artifact citation, or count toward the evidence floor. ## Draft Variant One candidate rendering of the same writing instruction, produced by one model route. A Draft Variant is a candidate in exactly the sense a Lead is: it carries no evidence of its own, can never be cited, and joins the Raven Task only when its wording is adopted into a Checkpoint that Raven verifies against real Sources. Comparing variants chooses phrasing; it never establishes a fact, and a sentence every variant agrees on is still unsupported until a Source excerpt supports it. ## Prose Layout The canonical line shape of a stored Artifact. Raven owns it rather than the executor, because Completion compares Artifact bytes: if each writer laid out its own text, one model's line-wrapping habits would decide whether a final Artifact matches its Checkpoint. Under the default layout each sentence occupies its own line, which makes a line the smallest edit unit — a revision then reads as the sentences that changed rather than as rewritten paragraphs. A Prose Layout never alters meaning and never reflows document structure. ## Source An external item that Raven has actually inspected and can identify again. A Source records a stable identity and enough location information to revisit the relevant material. A search result or remembered citation is only a lead until inspected. ## Claim A proposition considered or used by a Raven Task. A Claim distinguishes externally grounded statements from Raven's analysis and records whether it is supported, qualified, deferred, or rejected. ## Evidence Link The traceable relationship from a Claim to one or more Sources, including the location or excerpt that carries the relevant support. Multiple links do not imply independence when they share the same underlying origin. ## Verification A check that a Source reference resolves, an Evidence Link points to inspected material, a Claim does not exceed that material, and the current Artifact reflects the recorded evidence and Steering Revisions. Verification can find limitations without invalidating unrelated work. ## Limitation A visible gap caused by unavailable evidence, failed tools, incomplete coverage, unresolved contradiction, or a deliberately bounded scope. A Limitation narrows what Raven may claim; it does not automatically make the whole Raven Task fail. ## Task Team The set of Agents that share one Raven Task when the deployment composes Agent Teams. A Task Team has one Task identity, one evidence set, and one Artifact regardless of how many members contribute; a member never owns a Task of its own. Team membership changes who may contribute, never what the Task owes the user. ## Completion The business outcome that the requested Artifact is useful and its required checks have been performed. Completion may be explicitly limited when unresolved Limitations remain. Tool or worker termination alone is not Completion.