Version: Next

Glossary

Checkouts and the workspace

Workspace — memory/, a git repository of its own beside the Hostwarden checkout that holds everything Hostwarden learned and everything you told it. The workspace
Operations checkout — a checkout whose memory/ is the workspace. It administers servers; Hostwarden's own files are read-only there. The operations checkout
Development checkout — a checkout without a workspace, and every git worktree. It works on Hostwarden itself and reaches no server. Working on Hostwarden
Shared workspace — a workspace with a private git remote, shared by a team or by one person on several machines. A shared workspace
Operator handle — the short name, such as alice, that opens every journal line you cause and every decision you record. A shared workspace
Operations host — an always-on machine that runs the fleet's housekeeping unattended and reads your servers only through fleet read. An operations host

Host memory — a host's directory under memory/machines/, with memory.md at its heart. A host's memory
Journal line — the one-sentence headline of a change, written into the server's own journal under the tag hostwarden. Journal and changelog
Local changelog — changelog.log in the host's memory: each journal headline with the detail, verification and rollback. Journal and changelog
Activity check — the read of a host's journal on every connection, which shows you what happened there in the last seven days. Journal and changelog
Watcher — a script that logs under a session tag (hostwarden, heinzel); reported apart from the work of people. Journal and changelog
Decision — a choice you made about your servers, with the reason, which stops Hostwarden from proposing what it rules out. Decisions
Plan — work that spans sessions, in memory/plans/; deleted once done. To-do lists and plans
Master — the copy in the workspace of a file Hostwarden wrote onto a server, kept at the same path it has on the host. Files Hostwarden deploys
Map — a Mermaid diagram under memory/maps/, drawn from memory by bin/hostwarden-map, never by hand. Infrastructure maps

First-connection pipeline — the ordered steps before the first command on any host: access lists, DNS aliases, SSH user, host key, OS detection, machine memory, activity check, Heinzel legacy. Your first session
Onboarding — a full, read-only first probe of a host, on request, ending with what it lacks against the baseline. Onboarding a host
Local mode — administration of the machine Hostwarden runs on, without SSH, as your own user. Local administration
Unprivileged mode — work as the current user where neither sudo nor root SSH is available, with a report of what needs root. Access control
Via-host mode — reaching a guest that has no SSH server of its own through its hypervisor's manager. Hypervisors and their guests
Appliance — a system with its own updater, configuration and firewall, such as Proxmox VE or OPNsense, which gets a rule file of its own. Appliances
Platform — what the OS runs inside when something outside owns part of the machine; WSL is one. WSL and workstations
Role — what a machine is expected to have. A Mac, a WSL instance and the machine Hostwarden runs on are workstations, held to other expectations than a server. WSL and workstations
Guest — a VM, system container or jail on a hypervisor. Hypervisors and their guests

Baseline — what every server is expected to have, written down in rules/baseline.md, plus your own additions. Server baseline
Housekeeping — the routine health inspection of a host; it changes nothing. Housekeeping checks
Security audit — findings on SSH, firewall, accounts, services and hardening, by severity. Security audit
Fleet audit — a side-by-side comparison of key policies across every host, to show drift. Fleet audit
Fleet read — the way an operations host reads a server: its key may run a bundle of read-only checks you signed and write one journal line, nothing else. Fleet read

Override — a file you write under memory/custom-rules/ or in a host's rules.md to add to, replace or remove part of a shipped rule or skill. Overrides
Taboo — a command Hostwarden never runs without your explicit request, such as writing a partition table or touching a running sshd's configuration. Hard guardrails
Taboo guard — the Claude Code hook that blocks the taboos in every permission mode. Hard guardrails
SSH safety net — the automatic undo a firewall or network change arms first; it reverts the change unless a new SSH login succeeds. What it asks first
Canary — on a change to several hosts, the one host that runs it alone first; the others follow only when its result matches what was expected. One task on many hosts
Radius — the hosts a disruptive step reaches beyond its own: its guests, the hosts behind it, the hosts using its services, its cluster peers. What a reboot would hit
Maintenance window — a planned time for a disruptive step, with who to notify by when. Planning a maintenance window
Coordinator — a background session per operations checkout that keeps track of which session works on which host and passes announced steps on. It never reaches a server. Parallel sessions