# Glossary These definitions explain how terms are used in this book. They are reading aids, not a replacement for the sources and qualifications in the linked chapters. | Term | Meaning in the book | Read further | | --- | --- | --- | | ACAI | Accumulated Curiosity with Artificial Intelligence: the inquiry, practice, and retained judgment developed throughout the book. | [Chapter 7](../chapters/07-the-accumulated-curiosity-loop.md) | | Acceptance criteria | Properties you can inspect to decide whether a particular result meets its stated purpose. | [Chapter 4](../chapters/04-the-question-is-the-unit-of-learning.md) | | Agent | A system that can carry out an authorized sequence using available tools and context; capabilities and autonomy depend on the actual implementation. | [Chapter 17](../chapters/17-the-agentic-workforce.md) | | Artifact | A document, example, script, diagram, or other inspectable object produced or used in the work. | [Practice index](01-practice-index.md) | | Capability | An operation you can perform and support with appropriate evidence under stated conditions. | [Chapter 16](../chapters/16-from-knowledge-to-capability.md) | | Capacity | The amount of work that fits within stated time or resource constraints; it does not establish demand. | [Chapter 22](../chapters/22-from-product-to-value.md) | | Claim | A statement whose support, uncertainty, and intended use can be examined. | [Chapter 2](../chapters/02-the-end-of-knowledge-scarcity.md) | | Context | Information available to a model or person during a particular task. Available context and durable storage are different things. | [Chapter 8](../chapters/08-the-second-brain-is-not-enough.md) | | Current selector | A record or route identifying the instruction or artifact currently applicable to the task. | [Chapter 11](../chapters/11-the-knowledge-distillation-pipeline.md) | | Distillation | Turning examined material into a concise, scoped record while preserving the evidence and conditions needed to use it correctly. | [Chapter 11](../chapters/11-the-knowledge-distillation-pipeline.md) | | Evaluation | Comparing an actual result with relevant criteria and evidence; different evaluations support different claims. | [Chapter 18](../chapters/18-the-human-in-the-loop-principle.md) | | Evidence | Material or observations that support a particular claim within a stated scope. Naming a file does not establish what it contains. | [Chapter 2](../chapters/02-the-end-of-knowledge-scarcity.md) | | Himura Inc. | Audy's fictional workshop-design business used for the running examples. Its conversations, outputs, and financial numbers are authored teaching material. | [Chapter 21](../chapters/21-from-curiosity-to-product.md) | | First principles | Foundational relationships or premises used to explain a problem, whose applicability still requires examination. | [Chapter 5](../chapters/05-first-principles-axioms-and-mental-models.md) | | Handoff | Transfer of a defined responsibility and the required objects to another role or stage. | [Chapter 19](../chapters/19-the-solo-systems-architect.md) | | Hypothesis | A proposed explanation or expectation that can be investigated and revised in light of evidence. | [Chapter 3](../chapters/03-curiosity-is-a-capability.md) | | Knowledge graph | Entities connected by specified relationships; the book begins with a small manual map. | [Chapter 12](../chapters/12-the-personal-knowledge-graph.md) | | Memory | Retained information and judgment, together with the routes and rules that make it available for later work. Storage alone does not prove correct reuse. | [Chapter 8](../chapters/08-the-second-brain-is-not-enough.md) | | Owner-time allowance | Hours of owner work multiplied by an explicitly assumed hourly value; a comparison input, not automatically a paid wage. | [Chapter 22](../chapters/22-from-product-to-value.md) | | Polymathy | Developing and connecting understanding across domains while respecting the limits of each comparison. | [Chapter 6](../chapters/06-the-polymath-advantage.md) | | Portability | The ability to move and reconstruct relevant work; readable files and successful task behavior require separate evidence. | [Chapter 15](../chapters/15-the-sovereignty-test.md) | | Provenance | The origin and history needed to understand where a record came from and what supports it. | [Chapter 10](../chapters/10-the-architecture-of-remembering.md) | | Source fidelity | Preserving what the supplied evidence establishes, including uncertainty, rather than making the result merely look complete. | [Chapter 11](../chapters/11-the-knowledge-distillation-pipeline.md) | | Sovereignty | Meaningful control over the direction, authority, records, and dependencies of your work; not the absence of all external services. | [Chapter 15](../chapters/15-the-sovereignty-test.md) | | SovMem | The current TFIS name used for its intended sovereign-memory infrastructure. The book's manual exercises do not by themselves deploy it. | [Chapter 9](../chapters/09-the-sovereign-memory-principle.md) | | SSA-CMM | TFIS’s capability maturity model for solo systems architects, using the canonical TFIS homepage ladder: Task Operator; AI-Assisted Operator; Workflow Orchestrator; Agent Supervisor; Multi-Agent Architect; Sovereign Architect. | [Chapter 23](../chapters/23-the-ssa-cmm-ladder.md) | | Synthetic specimen | An authored input, output, or scene created to make practice inspectable. It is not an observed model run or market result. | [Chapter 1](../chapters/01-the-future-is-solo.md) | | TFIS | The Future Is Solo, whose assets provide the primary philosophy and maturity-model context for the book. | [Chapter 1](../chapters/01-the-future-is-solo.md) | | Transfer | Applying learning in a changed situation; the differences between situations affect what a successful example establishes. | [Chapter 16](../chapters/16-from-knowledge-to-capability.md) | | Unit economics | A model of the revenue, costs, and effort attributable to a clearly defined unit of an offer. | [Chapter 22](../chapters/22-from-product-to-value.md) | | Verdict | A scoped accept, reject, or rewrite judgment tied to a particular object, its evidence, and a reason. | [Chapter 13](../chapters/13-the-memory-flywheel.md) | | Workflow | An organized sequence of operations with defined inputs, outputs, and conditions for continuing or stopping. | [Chapter 17](../chapters/17-the-agentic-workforce.md) | For SSA-CMM naming and the variations used by *The Functional Life*, see the full treatment in Chapter 23 and the primary TFIS sources. The glossary uses the homepage labels consistently. ([The Future Is Solo, n.d.-a](https://life.thefutureissolo.com/); [The Future Is Solo, n.d.-b](https://thefutureissolo.com/)) ## References The Future Is Solo. (n.d.-a). *The functional life* (Field Manual No. 01). Retrieved September 10, 2026, from https://life.thefutureissolo.com/ The Future Is Solo. (n.d.-b). *The future is solo*. Retrieved September 10, 2026, from https://thefutureissolo.com/