Glossary
Every Agentina-specific term in one place. If a doc page uses a word you don't recognize, it's on this page.
Activation token
A one-time string (act_…, 24 chars) that an agent redeems during install. Single-use; the first machine to redeem claims it. Expires after 14 days. Mint from /portal/tokens.
Agent
One long-running process on a host you own. Heartbeats every 60 seconds; executes signed work-items dispatched by the Control Plane. One install = one agent = one slot on your license.
Agent ID
A stable UUID assigned at activation. Survives restarts and upgrades. Stays the same until the agent is reset by an admin or the install is wiped.
Anomaly
A finding produced by the Control Plane's heartbeat-time detector. Examples: fingerprint mismatch, multiple IPs in 10 minutes, self-hash drift, debugger attached. Visible at /admin/anomalies. Some auto-quarantine the agent; others require operator triage.
Bearer token
A short-lived (15–30 min) HS256 JWT the agent presents on every heartbeat. Refreshed on each successful heartbeat. Can be instantly revoked from /admin/agents if compromise is suspected.
Channel
A release stream the agent is pinned to. Four channels: stable, beta, enterprise-lts, dev. Set by your license; visible in agentina status.
Control Plane
The Agentina-managed server. Signs licenses, issues bearer tokens, accepts heartbeats, runs the anomaly detector, dispatches signed jobs. Customer-visible URL: cp.agentina.io.
Cosign
Sigstore's signature tool. Every release tarball + manifest is cosign-signed by a production KMS key; the installer verifies before extracting. Refuses dev-key-signed tarballs in production unless --allow-dev-builds is passed.
Fingerprint
A composite hash of five host identifiers (CPU, motherboard UUID, disk serial, MAC, hostname), weighted for re-bind tolerance. Bound to the license at activation. Drift beyond the threshold trips an anomaly.
Grace period
How long the agent keeps running after the heartbeat starts failing. Set by offline_grace_hours in the license (default 24h). After grace expires, the agent refuses new work with GRACE_EXHAUSTED until heartbeat recovers.
Heartbeat
The agent's every-60-seconds POST to /v1/heartbeat. Carries fingerprint, version, in-flight count, optional self-hash + anti-debug signals. Receives keep-going / stop + any newly-signed jobs.
Integrity score
A 0–100 composite score per agent. Combines unresolved anomalies, version skew, bearer revocations, and heartbeat staleness. Low scores auto-file a low-priority anomaly so operators see them in the inbox.
Job
A signed work-item the Control Plane dispatches to a specific agent. Carries a kind, a payload, a scope (allowed paths/commands/hosts), and an EdDSA signature. Agent verifies and policy-checks before executing.
Kid
Short for "key id." The label that identifies which signing key minted a JWT. Lets the Control Plane rotate keys without breaking running agents.
License JWT
The signed credential the agent stores at /var/lib/agentina/license.jwt. EdDSA-signed by the Control Plane. Encodes plan, max agents, features, expiry, machine binding, update channel. Verifiable offline against the embedded public key.
Manifest
A JSON file at the root of every release tarball listing every shipped file with its sha256. Cosign-signs alongside the tarball. Agent verifies the on-disk install against the manifest at every boot — mismatch refuses to start.
Persona
The kind of work a particular agent runs. Personas aren't configured at install; they're a property of the jobs you dispatch to a particular agent. Six personas: coder, reviewer, tester, planner, ui-tester, indexer. See choosing a persona.
Policy
Local rules the agent applies to every signed job before execution. Baseline denies: path traversal, pseudo-fs writes, shell metacharacters, dangerous commands (curl, nc, sudo). Then scope-based allows (paths / commands / hosts the job declared).
Quarantine
A non-terminal stop. The Control Plane sets this when an anomaly fires. Agent stops accepting new work but state is preserved. Recoverable from /admin/anomalies by resolving the finding.
Revocation
Operator action that flips a license, agent, or bearer to a terminal state. Three flavors: license revoke (the whole account stops), bearer revoke (a stolen session is killed within one heartbeat), agent reset (this install needs to re-activate).
Self-hash
The sha256 of the agent's own runtime files, checked against the cosign-signed manifest at boot. Detects tampered installs. Mismatch refuses to start.
Signed job
See job. The signature is what proves the job came from the Control Plane — the agent refuses unsigned input even from itself.
Trusted keys
The set of public keys the agent considers valid signers for license JWTs. Embedded in the native core in production. Multiple keys = rotation overlap. Read-only at runtime.
Update channel
See channel.
Missing a term?
File a ticket at /portal/support and we'll add it.