Reference
The Dictionary
Every term explained from the perspective of someone who learned it by building, not studying. 49 terms and growing.
A
Agentic Coding
A style of software development where an AI agent writes, edits, and manages code semi-autonomously while a human operator guides the direction.
AI Agent
An AI system that can take actions on its own, using tools and making decisions across multiple steps to accomplish a goal.
AI Pair Programming
Working alongside an AI assistant that helps you write, review, and debug code in real time as a collaborative partner.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A structured way for software systems to talk to each other, like a menu that lists what you can ask a service to do and how to ask for it.
Astro
A modern web framework designed for building fast, content-focused websites that ship minimal JavaScript to the browser.
C
Chain of Thought
A prompting technique that asks the AI to show its reasoning step by step, which leads to more accurate and reliable answers.
Claude
An AI assistant built by Anthropic, known for strong reasoning, long context windows, and a focus on safety.
CLI (Command Line Interface)
A text-based way to interact with your computer by typing commands instead of clicking buttons in a graphical interface.
Content Pipeline
An automated system that researches, creates, reviews, and publishes content through a series of connected steps with minimal manual intervention.
Context Engineering
The practice of designing the entire information ecosystem around an AI model (what it sees, what it remembers, what tools it can use) to produce consistently better results.
Context Window
How much an AI can 'remember' in a single conversation. Think of it as the AI's working memory.
Cron Job
A scheduled task that runs automatically at a set time or interval, like a recurring alarm for your software.
D
Deployment
The process of taking your code from your local machine and putting it live on the internet where people can access it.
Discernment
The ability to distinguish what is genuinely important from what merely appears important. In the biblical sense, God-given moral perception that separates signal from noise.
Drift
When an AI gradually loses track of your project's goals and starts making suggestions that don't fit anymore, usually because it's forgotten earlier context.
E
G
I
L
M
N
P
Plan Mode
A structured scoping process in AI coding tools that interviews you about your project before any code gets written, producing a clear plan that prevents wasted effort.
Project Memory
Systems that help AI tools remember past decisions and project context across sessions, surviving context window resets so you don't have to re-explain your project every time.
Prompt Engineering
The skill of writing clear, structured instructions to get better and more consistent results from AI models.
R
Repository
A project folder tracked by Git that contains all your code, files, and their complete change history.
Resend
A developer-friendly email sending service that makes it simple to send transactional and marketing emails through an API.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
A technique that feeds relevant documents to an AI model at query time so it can answer questions using your actual data instead of guessing.
S
Serverless
A way to run backend code without managing servers, where the cloud provider handles all the infrastructure and you only pay for what you use.
Stewardship
The responsibility to manage well what has been entrusted to you: your tools, your time, your projects, and the trust of the people who use what you build.
Structured Output
AI responses formatted in a predictable, machine-readable structure like JSON, so other software can reliably process the results.
Supabase
An open-source platform that provides a database, authentication, file storage, and API layer, often used as a backend for web applications.
System Prompt
Hidden instructions given to an AI model that define its personality, rules, and behavior before the user ever sends a message.
T
Temperature
An AI setting that controls how creative or predictable the model's responses are, on a scale from 0 to 1 (or higher).
Token
The small chunks of text that AI models read and generate, roughly three-quarters of a word each.
Tool Use (AI Tool Calling)
The ability of an AI model to call external functions and services during a conversation, going beyond text generation to take real actions.
Training Data
The massive collection of text, code, and other content that an AI model learns from before it can generate responses.
V
Vercel
A cloud platform for deploying websites and web applications, known for seamless integration with frontend frameworks and automatic deployments from Git.
Vibe Coding
A casual approach to building software with AI where you describe what you want in plain language and let the AI handle the implementation details.
W
Webhook
An automatic notification sent from one service to another when something happens, like a doorbell that rings your code when there is news.
Wisdom
The God-rooted skill of living rightly, discerning truly, and acting justly in the real world. Not intelligence or cleverness, but the practiced art of choosing well.