Glossary
StellarView names some things its own way. Where a plain word would do, this page gives you the plain word. Where the concept is genuinely new, there is a short film that shows it rather than a paragraph that describes it.
Learn these first
Three words. You cannot do anything at all without them, so they are taught on the first screen and assumed nowhere else.
Gap
In plain terms: A question the plan cannot answer on its own
Something the work needs decided that the document did not say, listed rather than guessed at.
Galaxy
In plain terms: Repository or project
A repository with its configuration, credentials, analysis state and history, held as one thing.
Big Bang
In plain terms: Where an epic is built
The screen that turns a document or a description into phases, work units, gaps and an architecture diagram per phase.
Epic
In plain terms: A body of work, broken down
A feature large enough to need decomposing into phases and work units before anyone writes code.
Learn these when you get there
Real concepts, but only when you open the feature that needs them.
Layer
In plain terms: Architectural tier
The five-tier model every file is placed into — Core, Services, APIs, UI, Infrastructure.
Mission
In plain terms: An automated workflow
An orchestrated run with named phases, prompt templates, and a full record of what the AI was asked and answered.
Constellation Epic
In plain terms: One epic delivered across several repositories
A single body of work planned and executed across several repositories at once, with the seams between them resolved deliberately.
Work Unit
In plain terms: A single implementable task
The smallest piece of an epic that one person can pick up, with its own acceptance criteria.
Smart Prompt
In plain terms: A reusable AI prompt template
A prompt held as a file with variables, inheritance and versioning, so behaviour can be changed without touching code.
HAL
In plain terms: The prompt template editor
Where every Smart Prompt is read and edited, in a real editor rather than buried in source.
AI Companion
In plain terms: The assistant panel
The panel you ask things of, which already knows the galaxy, the file and the screen you are on.
Skill
In plain terms: A packaged capability for Claude Code
A folder of instructions and resources that teaches an assistant how to do one job properly.
Vibe
In plain terms: Generate a working project from a description
Describe what you want and get a real repository that builds and runs, not a snippet.
Fleet
In plain terms: The cloud instances you run
Every StellarView instance your team has running, and the controls to start, stop and hand them over.
Ghost
In plain terms: A teammate's cloud dev environment
A full StellarView running in the cloud for one person, with their own credentials, behind their own login.
Replicant
In plain terms: Your own setup, running in the cloud
A cloud instance carrying your galaxy state, so it can carry on as you rather than as a stranger.
Renamed from **A Replicant is DELIBERATELY you: it carries your credentials, galaxies and tokens, and that is the feature. A Client Image is the opposite machine and must carry none of them. Both come out of the same packaging path today, so when somebody says "build an image" the first question is which they mean. ** to end a collision. See A Replicant is DELIBERATELY you: it carries your credentials, galaxies and tokens, and that is the feature. A Client Image is the opposite machine and must carry none of them. Both come out of the same packaging path today, so when somebody says "build an image" the first question is which they mean. .
Release
In plain terms: A named version you can point at
One name taken from a git tag that the source zip, the image, the tarball and the customer's download all carry, so a running image maps back to a commit.
Dirty build
In plain terms: Built from work you had not committed
An image whose name ends -dirty because the tree had uncommitted or untracked files, so nobody can rebuild it from git, including us.
Renamed from **Allowed on purpose, not an error. Imaging work in progress for a test or a custom enablement is a real thing to want. It is refused only at the moment of publishing to a customer. ** to end a collision. See Allowed on purpose, not an error. Imaging work in progress for a test or a custom enablement is a real thing to want. It is refused only at the moment of publishing to a customer. .
Client Image
In plain terms: The copy a customer runs
A StellarView image with nothing of the operator in it, which is the opposite of a Replicant even though both come out of the same build today.
Publish
In plain terms: Put the download in the bucket
Save the built image as a tarball under its release name so a grant has something real to point at. It tells nobody.
Renamed from **Publishing is not granting and not sending. Three separate acts on purpose: publish puts the artefact in the bucket, grant issues one person a link, and --send is what actually emails them. ** to end a collision. See Publishing is not granting and not sending. Three separate acts on purpose: publish puts the artefact in the bucket, grant issues one person a link, and --send is what actually emails them. .
Grant
In plain terms: Give one person a download link
Record a customer, issue a token for one published release, and print the link. It emails nobody unless you add --send.
Walkthrough
In plain terms: A recorded or live demonstration
Ask for something and it is shown to you — either a film that exists, or performed live on your own instance.
Walkthrough Rudiment
In plain terms: A very short film that shows one thing
Thirty to forty-five seconds showing a single action, or defining a single term, on a running system.
Analysis Mission
In plain terms: Requirements → design → test plan
The workflow that turns an issue into a root cause, a design and a test plan before any code is written.
Execution Mission
In plain terms: Code generation through to pull request
The workflow that takes an approved design and produces a branch, the implementation and a pull request.
Creation Mission
In plain terms: Turn a rough idea into a written issue
The workflow that takes a sentence or a voice note and produces a properly specified GitHub issue.
Away Mission
In plain terms: Run it on a remote machine instead
The same mission, executed on a cloud instance rather than your laptop, with results syncing back.
Miracle
In plain terms: Build one repository end to end
A full automated build of a single repository, from plan through implementation to pull requests.
Look these up
Never taught, never assumed. Here when you need them.
Ring
In plain terms: Layer of the architecture, drawn
One of five concentric circles in the 3D view, where a file sits by the job it does rather than the folder it is in.
Local Cluster
In plain terms: A group of related files on one ring
Files on the same ring that belong together, shown as one group when you open a layer.
Renamed from Constellation to end a collision. See Constellation.
Release name
In plain terms: The version string
Taken from git by releaseStamp, the exact tag if there is one and otherwise the short commit, and never typed by a person.
Mothership
In plain terms: The StellarView source itself
The repository every client image is cut from, as opposed to the galaxies and apps StellarView builds for other people.
First Light
In plain terms: The first complete end-to-end run
The moment a build runs the whole way through for the first time and produces something real.
Commission
In plain terms: Merge and close out the work
The close-out pass that merges the stacked pull requests, retargets what is left, and leaves the repository clean.
Shakedown
In plain terms: Find what the build missed
The pass after commissioning that looks for gaps and turns them into an enhancement epic.
Cascade
In plain terms: Changes flow downstream
Editing one section automatically updates the sections and work units that depend on it.
Refinement
In plain terms: Rewrite a section by talking to it
Chat-based editing that re-runs the underlying prompt with your correction folded in.
Bridge
In plain terms: The link to Claude Code
A local WebSocket connection that lets the visual side and the command line side share context.
Bundle
In plain terms: An exported snapshot
A galaxy's configuration, credentials and state packaged so it can be moved or restored.
Blueprint
In plain terms: Architecture extracted from real code
A unified architecture document derived from production repositories rather than from model training data.
Voyager
In plain terms: Multi-repo architecture analysis
Reads five to ten reference repositories and extracts the patterns they share.
Lane-Keeping
In plain terms: Anti-hallucination discipline
Holds generation to the patterns in the blueprint, so the AI cannot invent an architecture of its own.
Seed Mission
In plain terms: Start a project from extracted patterns
Bootstraps a new repository from a blueprint rather than from an empty folder.
Genesis
In plain terms: The new-project wizard
Detects what kind of project you are starting and walks you through the setup.
The Practicai
In plain terms: The governance framework
The standards that apply above any single project — what the AI may do, and what must be recorded.
Stellar Context Engine
In plain terms: Model routing and context management
Chooses the model, budgets the tokens, and decides what context is worth sending.
Execution Handoff Gate
In plain terms: Which AI does the work
Routes code generation to Claude Code, the Claude API, OpenAI, Bedrock or a local model.
Construct
In plain terms: An empty cloud instance
A cloud machine with nothing loaded, for starting fresh rather than carrying state across.
Cosmic Pulse
In plain terms: Files light up as they change
Edited files glow in the 3D view while you work, so the shape of what you are touching is visible.
Space Lake
In plain terms: The document store behind a galaxy
Where everything read into a project lives — the documents in, before anything is made out of them.
Galaxy Registry
In plain terms: The list of known projects
The file that records every galaxy on this machine and which one is active.
Galaxy Explorer
In plain terms: Repository search
Search GitHub for repositories worth reading as references.
Galaxy Manager
In plain terms: Project settings
Where repositories are added or removed, credentials are set, and the active project is switched.
GitHub Companion
In plain terms: The GitHub panel
Issues, pull requests and mission launching, against the repository you are in.
Being renamed
Internal names that leaked into the interface. They are listed so you are not confused if you still see one, not because they are worth learning.
Space Station
In plain terms: The dashboard
The overview of issues, missions and recent activity, shown when nothing specific is selected.
Being renamed to Dashboard. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Starkeeper
In plain terms: Automated code review
Five specialised reviewers — security, architecture, logic, quality and style — each reading the change for one thing.
Being renamed to Automated Code Review. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Nova Protocol
In plain terms: The coding standards
The engineering rules the generated code is held to — short functions, units in names, minimal scope, fail fast.
Being renamed to Coding Standards. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Transporter Room
In plain terms: The team sign-in portal
Where a team member signs in and reaches their own instance, and nobody else's.
Being renamed to Team Sign-in. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Wormhole
In plain terms: A secure tunnel to a cloud instance
A port-forwarding session from your machine to an instance that has no public address.
Being renamed to Secure Tunnel. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Stellarcore Network
In plain terms: The shared cloud networking
The VPC, subnets and security groups every cloud instance sits inside.
Being renamed to Cloud Networking. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Cosmic Emissions
In plain terms: The AI audit trail
Every prompt, response, token count and decision, recorded so a run can be explained after the fact.
Being renamed to AI Audit Trail. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Pouch
In plain terms: The galaxy's folder
The directory holding one galaxy's configuration, credentials and snapshots.
Being renamed to Galaxy folder. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Probe
In plain terms: A pluggable panel
A self-contained interface module loaded into the workspace.
Being renamed to Panel. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.
Main Panel
In plain terms: The 3D view
The main view where the rings are drawn.
Being renamed to The 3D view. If you see the old word in the interface, that is why.