Glossary

This glossary defines nax terms as they are used in the CLI, workflow files, dashboard, and artifacts. Some terms overlap with Netlify or GitHub vocabulary, but the definitions here focus on how the nax codebase and user workflow use them.

Agent

One supported model target: claude, gemini, or codex.

Agent Runner

The Netlify-hosted execution environment that runs an agent against a repository and prompt.

Artifact

A persisted local output under .nax/, such as a workflow summary, runner summary, session summary, event log, or prompt blob mirror.

Council pattern

A workflow shape where multiple agents first inspect the same task independently, then cross-review the findings before a final synthesis step prepares a human-readable artifact.

Flow

The workflow definition loaded from flow.yml, flow.json, flow.toml, flow.js, or flow.ts.

Handoff

The process of selecting an existing artifact and copying, opening, or feeding it into a new agent or workflow.

Project-local workflow

A workflow defined by the current project, usually under .github/nax-flows/.

Prompt offload

The mechanism that stores oversized prompt content in Netlify Blobs and submits a smaller fetch wrapper to the runner.

Runner

A Netlify Agent Runner thread. Follow-up submissions can continue an existing runner context.

Session

One concrete agent result within a runner.

Step

One ordered unit inside a flow. A step can submit issues, comments, follow-ups, or a human review gate.

Transport

The submission path for a run. github-actions dispatches a hosted GitHub workflow. netlify-api submits directly from the local machine.

Workflow run

One execution of a flow, persisted under .nax/workflows/<workflow-run-id>/.