Term Disambiguation

Some terms in the AXAG ecosystem overlap with terms from related fields. This page clarifies the specific AXAG meaning.

Action vs. Event

Term	AXAG Meaning	Common Meaning
Action	An agent-invocable operation declared with axag-intent	Any user interaction (click, scroll, type)

In AXAG, "action" specifically means a declared, tool-generatable operation — not every user interaction.

Annotation vs. Attribute

Term	AXAG Meaning	HTML Meaning
Annotation	The complete set of axag-* attributes on an element	Any HTML attribute
Attribute	A single axag-* key-value pair	A single HTML attribute

An annotation is composed of multiple attributes. An element with axag-intent, axag-entity, and axag-action-type has one annotation consisting of three attributes.

Intent vs. Event vs. Command

Term	Meaning in AXAG	Similar Concepts
Intent	What the action is meant to accomplish (product.search)	REST endpoint, RPC method name
Event	Not an AXAG concept	DOM events, webhooks, pub/sub messages
Command	Not an AXAG concept	CQRS commands, CLI commands

AXAG uses "intent" to emphasize that the annotation describes purpose, not mechanism.

Manifest vs. Schema vs. Spec

Term	AXAG Meaning
Semantic Manifest	The JSON document containing all actions for a site
Schema	The JSON Schema definition that validates a manifest
Specification	The AXAG standard itself (this documentation)

Confirmation vs. Approval

Term	What It Is	When Required	Who Decides
Confirmation	User acknowledges the action	risk_level >= high	The user themselves
Approval	Authorized role authorizes the action	Business rule	A designated approver role

Confirmation is "Are you sure?" — the user agrees.
Approval is "Is this authorized?" — a privileged role agrees.

An action can require both: the user confirms, then a super_admin approves.

Scope vs. Tenant Boundary

Term	What It Defines
Scope	What data the action can access (public, user, tenant, global)
Tenant Boundary	How strictly tenant isolation is enforced (strict, relaxed)

Scope declares the access level. Tenant boundary declares the enforcement level.

Idempotent vs. Safe

Term	Meaning
Idempotent	Calling twice produces the same result (but may have side-effects the first time)
Safe (read-only)	Has no side-effects at all

All read actions are safe AND idempotent.
Some write actions are idempotent but NOT safe (e.g., PUT that updates a record).

Risk Level vs. Action Type

Risk level and action type are orthogonal:

	read	write	delete
none	✅ Common	Rare	Never
low	Possible	✅ Common	Rare
medium	Possible	✅ Common	Possible
high	Rare	✅ Common	✅ Common
critical	Rare	✅ Common	Possible