GLOSSARY
Terminology of the Cognitive OS
The core vocabulary that defines governed machine reasoning and the abstractions introduced by ATOM OS.
TERMS
ATOM OS - Cognitive Glossary
Cognitive Kernel
The core of ATOM OS. Governs reasoning boundaries, identity, transitions, execution slots, and system integrity.
Governed Cognition
Reasoning treated as a system with enforceable rules: boundaries, structure, trust, drift, memory, and identity.
Governance Envelope
A real-time wrapper defining what reasoning may access, how it may transition, and what limits apply.
LCAC (Least-Context Access Control)
ATOM’s cognitive boundary system. Limits reasoning to the minimal context, role, and transition set permitted.
RIS (Reasoning Integrity Standard)
The structural integrity framework for cognition: stability, coherence, alignment, consistency, and variation.
CII (Cognitive Integrity Index)
The trust model for machine reasoning. Captures reliability over time, across providers, and across environments.
Drift
Behavioral change in cognition over time. Includes semantic drift, structural drift, temporal drift, and provider divergence.
Shadow Reasoning
Parallel cognitive evaluation used to detect inconsistency, divergence, or instability.
Execution Graph
A deterministic plan for multi-step cognition: nodes for reasoning, evaluation, trust checks, drift checks, and output governance.
Cognitive Boundary
The limits of a reasoning process - identity, role, context, permissible transitions, and total allowed scope.
Identity Layer
The mapping of who initiated cognition, under what authority, with what constraints and expectations.
Role Enforcement
Ensuring reasoning adheres to the boundaries defined by its assigned role (agent role, system role, tenant role, etc.).
Provider-Agnostic Runtime
ATOM’s execution environment for cloud models, local models, edge inference, and agent cognition under unified governance.
Cognitive Isolation
Preventing reasoning processes from contaminating each other across agents, tenants, or model boundaries.
Governed Memory
Structured cognitive memory subject to boundaries, retention rules, and segmentation — not a raw prompt history.
Memory Fabric
ATOM’s governed memory framework: short-term state, long-term records, drift memory, shadow memory, trust overlays, and policy layers.
Cognitive Replay
The ability to observe and analyze the sequence, structure, and transitions of past reasoning events without reconstructing model internals.
Reasoning Variance
Behavioral differences across repeated cognitive runs, providers, agents, or environments.
Trust Envelope
The dynamic trust boundaries and expectations that evolve as a reasoning chain continues executing.
Cognitive Domain
A self-contained reasoning territory within ATOM OS with identity, memory, policies, and isolation.
Agent Slot
A controlled reasoning container assigned to an agent - enforcing boundaries, memory segmentation, and allowed transitions.
Transition Map
The set of allowed cognitive movements between reasoning states defined by LCAC and the kernel.
Cognitive Surface
Any environment where reasoning occurs - cloud, local, edge, embedded, agent, or hybrid.
Governed Execution
Execution that adheres to role, identity, trust, drift, and structural constraints enforced by the OS.