Glossary

The words the documentation uses for PABLO's moving parts, one name per concept, each with a link to the page that explains it.

Agents and where they run#

ADE (agent environment)#

Where agents run and where you open them: Orca (the default), OpenChamber, or headless (in the background, without an application). Chosen with the agent_backend config key or the PABLO_AGENT_BACKEND environment variable. See Choose an ADE and Agent environments (ADEs).

Runtime#

The agent CLI that runs the agents inside the ADE: OpenCode (the default), Claude Code or GitHub Copilot CLI. Chosen with agent_runtime or PABLO_AGENT_RUNTIME. See Choose a runtime.

Agent#

One of PABLO's five agents, each launched by a state: task-analyst, ci-analyst, pr-feedback and task-feedback, which only read and analyse, and rebase-conflict-resolver, the one that may edit code. See The agents.

Launch record#

What a task remembers of each agent launch (agent_launches: when, how many attempts), so the poller can relaunch an agent whose session never appeared. See Launches that never start.

Tasks#

Task#

One piece of work, from an issue or a prompt: a branch, its worktree, and later its pull request, followed by PABLO until it is merged or closed. See Start a task.

Worktree#

The git worktree of a task's branch, created from the remote primary branch. Agents run in it, and you work in it; it is removed when the pull request is merged or when you close the task (a pull request closed without merging only moves the task to closed). See Start a task.

State#

Where a task stands in PABLO's state machine (in-progress, draft, ci-red, waiting-review…). Entering a state may launch an agent. See Every state.

Failure signal#

How QA says a task failed testing: a label on the pull request (GitHub) or an issue status (Jira, Linear), set by testing.failure_signal. Only a new one moves a task to testing-failed. See QA failure signal.

Ready anchor#

The time of GitHub's last “ready for review” event on a pull request. Only reviews submitted after it count, so an approval from a previous round doesn't leak into this one. See Reviews.

Display cache#

The rendered cells of pablo task:list, written into each task record by the poller, so the listing and the dashboard show instantly without calling GitHub. See Task records.

The background job#

Scheduler#

The systemd user timer (Linux) or launchd agent (macOS) that starts the dispatcher every 5 minutes. See Two layers.

Dispatcher#

pablo system:dispatch, the background job the scheduler runs: under a global lock, it runs each project's poll, sync and main jobs when their interval has elapsed. See The background job.

Stamp#

A file in ~/.pablo/stamps/ holding the last successful run of one job for one project; the dispatcher compares it with the job's interval. See The ~/.pablo folder.

Poller#

The poll job: it checks each task's pull request, CI, reviews and failure signal, and moves the task through the state machine. See What the poller watches.

Sync#

The job that rebases (or merges) task branches onto the primary branch: only a report by default (unless sync.auto_apply is on), never resolving a conflict in code. See Task branches.

Primary branch, primary checkout#

The primary branch is the project's main branch (main, say), which tasks start from and sync onto. The primary checkout is your own clone of the project, which the main job fast-forwards when it is clean. See Primary checkout update.