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Glossary

The ubiquitous language is a concept from Domain-Driven Design — a shared, precise vocabulary that keeps humans and AI agents aligned when they talk, spec, and code. In litespec, that vocabulary lives in specs/glossary.md and is read by the planning and review skills.

Why it matters

Without a shared vocabulary, the same concept gets a different name in every conversation. Drift accumulates: product.md says one thing, the spec says another, the code uses a third, and the next AI session invents a fourth. A ubiquitous language prevents that drift by making the core terms explicit and durable.

It is not a dictionary of every domain noun. It is a curated list of terms whose meaning affects how the system is specified, built, or reviewed.

How litespec uses it

The glossary lives in the repo as specs/glossary.md. It is optional, but litespec works better when it exists.

Skill How it uses the glossary
litespec-plan Reads it in fuzzy and clear modes. When a new, stable, or ambiguous term appears, it nudges you to add it. It can also seed a new glossary.
litespec-build May consult it as optional terminology context while implementing a unit. No enforcement.
litespec-review May consult it while checking spec vs. implementation. No enforcement.

If specs/glossary.md is missing, the skills degrade gracefully: no error, no block. The plan skill may suggest creating one once stable terms emerge.

How to maintain it

The glossary is curated, not auto-generated. A skill proposes; a human approves. Only add terms that are:

  • Shared — used in specs, code, decisions, and everyday conversation
  • Stable — likely to mean the same thing in six months
  • Ambiguous — easy to confuse with something else

To add or update terms, either:

  1. Ask your agent to update it while running litespec-plan.
  2. Edit specs/glossary.md directly.

Each entry is one line: a bold term, a colon and a space, then a concise definition. Where it helps, note what the term explicitly does not mean.

- **Widget**: a customer-visible unit of work in the dashboard. Not a database row. Not a UI component.

Source of truth

The terms themselves live in specs/glossary.md. This page explains the concept and the workflow — it does not duplicate or inline the terms.