Short definitions of the terms used throughout the Quorum Terminal documentation. Each one is a stable idea you will meet again as you work — the project folder you open, the terminals and AI sessions inside it, and the panels and context that support them.
Workspace & terminals
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Workspace | A project folder you open in Quorum Terminal. Settings persist per project, so each codebase keeps its own configuration. |
| Surface | How your terminals are arranged. The two surfaces are Grid and Sessions. |
| Grid | A surface that tiles terminals at once, from 1x1 up to 4x4. Best when you want several terminals visible together. |
| Sessions surface | A surface with one focused active terminal plus a scan-first list of the rest, each row showing its status. Open it to drive one terminal while monitoring the others. |
| Worktree | A separate working tree of the same repository, so one branch can be checked out per directory without disturbing the others. Manage worktrees from Source Control (⌘ ⇧ G). |
AI & agents
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Session | An AI agent run, tracked with metadata such as its branch, model, estimated cost, age, and activity. When a session ends it is archived rather than discarded, and you can resume it later. |
| Subagent | A scoped agent dispatched to handle one bounded part of a task, reporting back to the agent that launched it. |
| Agent Radar | The status view that surfaces which agents are running, waiting, or idle across your terminals. Cycle to the next waiting agent with ⌘ ⇧ A. |
| Agent rule | An instruction that shapes how an agent behaves in a workspace, typically drawn from your context files. |
Quorum Terminal runs locally and never receives your code, prompts, or usage.
Extending & context
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Skill | A reusable capability an agent can invoke to perform a specialized, well-defined action. |
| Plugin | An extension that adds functionality to Quorum Terminal. Open the Plugins panel with ⌘ ⇧ P. |
| Saved prompt | A reusable prompt you store and recall instead of retyping it. Open Saved Prompts with ⌘ ⇧ S. |
| Context files | Files autoloaded from the repository root — AGENTS.md, STRUCTURE.json, and CLAUDE.md — so agent context survives across sessions and reloads. |
Quorum Terminal is macOS-only (macOS 13+); Windows and Linux are planned for Q4 2026.
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