Glossary

APC

Agent Project Context. A portable convention for storing project-level agent context inside a repository.

APC Consumer

Any tool, runtime, editor, or automation layer that reads APC data.

APX

Optional runtime and daemon layer that can consume APC, manage local runtime state, merge MCP config views, and dispatch agents across tools.

Agent Definition

Project-owned description of an agent’s role, model preference, skills, or related metadata.

AGENTS.md

Root compatibility contract for repository-wide rules, stack notes, commands, and shared project context.

.apc/

Canonical APC directory for project-owned context.

Memory

Curated agent-specific project context stored in plain text. It should contain durable safe facts, not raw transcripts.

Runtime State

Local data produced by a running agent, such as sessions, conversations, messages, caches, and tool outputs. Private runtime memory also belongs here. Runtime state belongs outside .apc/.

Session

A runtime-owned record of an agent invocation or conversation. APC does not store raw sessions in its portable core.

Skill

Reusable project-owned instruction file referenced by one or more agents.

Project Context

Information that belongs to the repository and should remain meaningful across tools, sessions, and machines.

Global Context

Context that belongs to a person, machine, or runtime installation rather than one repository.

MCP

Model Context Protocol. A separate protocol layer used for external tool and service integration.