GLOSSARY.md

Glossary of command words and terms

One word, one meaning, in every WireCat CLI: tg, max, memo, drive and zm. This page lists the words for commands, resources and JSON keys, the one meaning of each, the words it replaces, and where a CLI uses it differently today.

• The WireCat CLI standards handbook binds all five CLIs. The verb, resource and flag meanings live in cli-base's vocabulary and are shown in STANDARD.md's tables; this page repeats a word only to show where it applies and where it is broken.
• Each CLI starts from its own lint baseline (lint/baseline/), which only shrinks; each repository fixes its violations in its own change.
• A word changes in cli-base's vocabulary first, in its own pull request, and the owner approves new wording. This page follows.
• "Current violations" were found on 2026-10-12 from <cli> commands --json (tg 0.51.0, max 0.48.0, memo and drive at their installed builds) and by reading the source. Nothing was renamed. Renames come in later pull requests, one per decision.

Verbs

The last word of a command. Columns: CLIs where the verb applies today; Not the synonyms it replaces; Violations the command paths that use another word for this meaning, or this word for another meaning.

Verb	One meaning	CLIs	Not	Violations
list	show many	all	ls	drive shared-drives (a list with no verb)
show	show one	all	get, view	tg/max metadata show, max bot comments get, drive documents get, files get, comments get, permissions get, revisions get
search	find by text, under search <resource>	all	find, query	drive search (root leaf, no resource), memo/drive memories search (a resource's own search leaf)

| create / delete | make or destroy a thing | all | mkdir, trash, rm | drive files mkdir, files trash (see NEED-991) | | add / remove | put an existing thing into a set, or take it out | all | rm, attach | tg/max contacts aliases remove; memo folders attach | | update | change a thing's fields | all | plan, edit for fields | tg/max tasks update (sets title, due date) | | set / unset | one named key | all | configure | drive models configure | | sync | bring the local store up to date from the source: only what changed, or the whole list where the source cannot say; --all for every chat or source (owner, 2026-10-12); a mirror syncs both ways, as drive's mirrors sync (owner, 2026-10-24) | all | import for a catch-up, refresh, store fetch | memo import and notes import (to become memo sync), memo mail <account> import, tg/max metadata sync, stats messages counters sync; tg/max contacts sync help says "forget where the last sync left off and take the whole list again" — its help still describes a full re-read of the list, not only what changed | | fetch | one bounded pull of one named thing from the messenger, not a catch-up | tg, max | refresh, get | --refresh options (contacts context, search conversations) | | import | bring a file or list the user gives into the store or the messenger, once | all | — | memo import, notes import (a repeatable catch-up: sync) | | export | write from the store to a file | all | — | none | | extract | read the text inside files already on this machine into the store | tg, max | — | drive memories extract (sends text to a model and proposes memories: another meaning) | | link / unlink | record that two identities are one person, or undo it | tg, max | — | tasks link (a task and what it concerns; with a task: target, task to task), memo projects meetings link, drive people link (a Google user to a person); tg/max messages link (a view: the permalink) | | confirm | the owner accepts what an agent proposed | memo, drive | accept, approve | memo facts accept, actions approve vs relationships confirm, memories confirm (three words, one meaning) | | reject | the owner refuses what an agent proposed | memo | decline, deny | none in memo; tg/max chats requests reject, replies consents deny are the messenger's own words | | start / stop | a running process or a login session | all | on / off, enable | tg/max replies on / off, memo auto on / off, tg topics enable | | pause / resume | stop and restart what a running process does, without stopping it | tg, max | snooze for a process | none | | check | verify, change nothing | tg, max | audit, preflight | tg/max chats members check, memo vocabulary audit, vocabulary preflight | | cancel | stop a job or a pending thing | all | — | none | | status | how a thing stands right now | all | readiness | memo tasks readiness | | info | facts about a singular thing itself | tg, max | — | none | | move / copy | a file in the source | drive | — | none | | restore | put a backup back, or take a thing out of the trash | tg, max, drive | — | drive files restore (out of the trash: a second meaning) | | rebuild | compute again, from what the store holds, what the tool derives from it, keeping the owner's decisions | tg, max | — | none; tg/max store rebuild is not in the vocabulary |

Verbs used but not in cli-base's vocabulary, by CLI (2026-10-12). Each needs a registry entry or a rename.

• tg/max: accept, allow, answer, audit, build, decline, decrypt, deny, enable, exec, get, grant, mute, unmute, next, off, on, order, plan, press, put, refresh, reindex, retry, revoke, rm, run, send-as.
• memo: about, accept, ack, approve, ask, assign, attach, audit, poll, preflight, propose, ready, readiness, reject, relations, resolve, reverse, schedule, snooze, stale, suggest, on, off.
• drive: configure, copy, get, mkdir, move, trash, stale, extract (another meaning).

Nouns and terms

Term	One meaning	Not	Used wrongly
store (local store)	the one SQLite database tg, max, memo and drive share on this machine	archive, cache, message database, shared store	memo help says "shared store"; drive help says "cached sources"; max keeps a per-profile cache, a different thing (STANDARD.md, Messenger words)
message	one post in a messenger chat, or one email	item, post (except a channel post), hit	none
attachment	a file of a stored message	file, media	max chats media (the messenger's media list: allowed as the messenger's word)
file text	the text read from an attachment and kept in the store, found by content:	extracted text, OCR text	attachments update is the right place; no conflict found
transcript	the text of speech: a voice message or a meeting recording	—	tg/max store export --format markdown calls a day-by-day export "a transcript"
note	text the owner writes, or a file from a notes folder	memo, annotation, document	tg/max contacts notes are notes about a contact (same table, fine); drive help says "local shared memos about a source document"
document	a file imported from Google Drive or Docs	source, note	drive help says "imported sources" for documents; drive keeps documents as note: rows (drive-cli/src/store.ts:111), so one thing has two names
folder	open (NEED-988): three different things share the word	—	tg chats folders (Telegram chat folders), memo folders (notes folders), drive folders (Google Drive folders chosen to sync)
tag	a label the owner puts on a thing; a topic is a tag kind only the owner makes	label	memo help says "labels" for tags; tg tags rebuild makes tags from rules
topic	forum topics in a group: topics, search topics (cli-base vocabulary)	—	memo vocabulary create (a kind of tag)
project	the owner's work unit with a task key	entity	entity: references still parse for old files
organization	a company, team, family or community	entity	none
person	one human, across every messenger and mail (person:<uid>)	user, people	tg bot help: "user: for a person", "the person's user id"; drive people
contact	one person as one source knows them: a mail correspondent, a Telegram user, a Drive owner, a calendar attendee; an identities row	user	none found beyond the above
entity	the thing the owner means — a person, an event, a document; it carries no provider id (WC-DATA-2)	record, object	none
source record	one source's copy of an entity, keyed by account and external_id: a contact, a Zoom meeting, an email, a message	entity, item	none
core entity	an entity or source record whose table cli-core owns because more than one tool needs it	shared table	none
preferred source record	the copy whose fields an entity shows, chosen by a rule per entity	primary, main copy	none
provider registry	the providers this store knows: the built-ins plus what each CLI wrote with registerProvider	provider list	none
review list	pairs that may be one thing, kept for the owner to decide instead of linked by a rule (not built yet)	duplicates, merge queue	none
identity	one way to reach a person or an organization: an account in a messenger or mailbox, an e-mail address, a phone (contact:<provider>/<id>)	contact (when meaning the account), user	memo note <identity> takes <messenger>:<name>
key document	open (NEED-990): no CLI, help text or doc defines it today	—	—
fact	what happened: a statement, question, decision or promise, with evidence	memory	none
memory	what an agent concluded, with evidence and scope	fact, summary	none
relationship	a confirmed or suggested link between a person, organization or project	relation, link	memo tasks relations (task to task); drive links (links between references)
mention	a phone, e-mail address, link, document or known person's name found in one place of a stored text, normalized; found → linked or dismissed	extraction, entity, link (links joins two stored records)	none
reference	the typed name of any stored thing: msg:, chat:, contact:, note:, document:, person:, task:, fact:, memory: (src/domain/references.ts)	ref, id	see Output keys
locator	the reference of one message: msg:<provider>/<account>/<chat>/<message> only (src/domain/locator.ts)	ref	memo search puts note: and task: references in locator (cli-memo/src/search/command.ts:82,123)
profile	the name of one login of this CLI on this machine; chosen, never assumed	account (for this meaning)	memo mail <account>, --account; drive help "account profiles"; tg/max contacts show (a person's card: another meaning)
account	the messenger or mail account behind a profile; also provider/account in the store key	profile	tg/max account list lists profiles
source	where stored data came from: a messenger, a mailbox, a notes folder, Google Drive	—	memo tags add "Put labels on one source" (means one stored thing); drive "imported sources" (means documents)
search hit	one result of a search	result, match, item	JSON key is items in some searches and hits in others; see below
context	open (NEED-987): two meanings	—	entity card: memo context, projects context, organizations context, drive documents context, tg/max contacts context; messages around one message: tg/max messages context

Output keys

Read from source, not run.

Kind	Canonical key	Deviations
A list	{ items, page, next?, missing?, meta } (WC-OUT-4)	drive search answers { query, by, hits, hasMore, nextOffset, linked } (drive-cli/src/store.ts:109); drive lists answer { items } alone (drive-cli/src/program.ts:243,313); memo and drive commands --json add items beside commands (drive-cli/src/program.ts:527)
A message	locator (msg: only)	none in tg/max
Any other stored thing	ref (WC-OUT-13)	reference: drive documents list (drive-cli/src/program.ts:315); locator holding a non-message: memo search
A command to run next	a field that names its purpose, such as next	chats show and the members audit answer fetch: "<cli> messages sync <chat>" (src/services/chats.ts:251,292): the key is a verb
A page cursor	page.has_more, with page.next_page or page.next_cursor (WC-OUT-5)	none in tg/max

Decided (owner, 2026-10-12)

• store fetch becomes messages sync. sync means "bring the local store up to date from the source, only what changed; --all for every chat or source". memo import becomes memo sync. drive sync already has this meaning: it keeps a change cursor and reads everything only on the first run. fetch stays for a bounded pull of one named thing (chats members fetch). cli-base's vocabulary says so. tg and max have renamed store fetch; memo's import rows above were read on 2026-10-12.

Decided by the cli-base registries and the handbook

• NEED-985 · No alias for a renamed path, store fetch and memo import included: a renamed path stops working in the release that renames it (WC-CMD-8).
• NEED-986 · A stored thing is named by ref (WC-OUT-13).
• NEED-989 · topics are forum topics in a group, in cli-base's vocabulary. memo's topic tags need another word.
• NEED-991 · drive's file verbs map to the vocabulary: delete replaces trash and rm, create replaces mkdir, show replaces get; move and copy are registered verbs for a file in the source.

Open questions for the owner

• NEED-987 · context: keep it for the entity card (memo, drive, contacts context) and rename messages context (for example messages around), or the reverse?
• NEED-988 · folders: three meanings (Telegram chat folders, notes folders, Drive folders). Keep folders for the messenger's and prefix the others (notes folders, drive folders), or accept one word per CLI?
• NEED-990 · key document: what does it mean, and which CLI has it?
• NEED-992 · One permission for syncing: messages sync (like store fetch before it) is checked against the read key messages, but --sync-first on a search is the write key messages.sync-first. A read-only profile can sync directly but not through --sync-first. Make both reads, or both writes?