Glossary

This glossary covers all terminology you'll encounter while using Cosmo, reading documentation, or building on the Cosmo platform.

A

Agent
An autonomous AI workflow that executes multi-step tasks without step-by-step user supervision. Agents can use multiple tools in sequence, produce artifacts, access workspace memory, and make decisions at each step. Distinct from a chat session where the user guides each turn.

API Key
A token used to authenticate an integration that does not use OAuth. You obtain the key from the external service and paste it into Cosmo's connector setup. Stored encrypted at rest.

Artifact
A named, persistent content object within a workspace — a document, proposal, report, analysis, visualization, or data table. Artifacts are rendered rich in the Hub, versioned, and shared with your team. Distinguished from a plain chat response, which is ephemeral.

Auth Mode
How an MCP integration authenticates with its external service. Cosmo supports four auth modes: SERVER_MEDIATED (Cosmo proxies OAuth), REMOTE_OAUTH (the MCP server handles OAuth 2.1), API_KEY (user-provided token), and NONE (no auth required).

B

BYO Keys (Bring Your Own Keys)
An Enterprise-only feature that allows organizations to supply their own Anthropic, OpenAI, or Azure AI API keys. AI usage is then billed directly to the organization's accounts with those providers, rather than against Cosmo's token quotas.

Billing Period
The monthly cycle for subscription billing. Upgrades are prorated immediately. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period.

C

Chat Panel
The center panel in Cosmo's three-panel layout. The primary interface for conversing with AI. Displays the message stream, tool call activity, streaming responses, and the model selector.

Cloud Sync
A feature (available on Standard and above) that syncs workspace data — artifacts, memory, sessions — to Cosmo's cloud storage. Enables real-time collaboration and access from multiple devices. Not available on the Free plan.

Connector
See Integration.

Context Window
The maximum amount of text (measured in tokens) that an AI model can consider at once. Different models have different context windows. Cosmo automatically compacts long conversations to stay within the active model's limits.

Core (engine)
The @cosmohq/core TypeScript package — the pure business logic engine that all shells (desktop, CLI, web) build on. Contains MCP management, LLM orchestration, workspace logic, and streaming.

D

Daily Digest
An AI-generated summary of activity across your workspaces and connected integrations. Appears on the Dashboard in the Hub panel. Helps teams start each day with a contextual overview of what happened and what needs attention.

Dashboard
The default view in the Hub panel. Shows your Daily Digest, recent workspaces, and an overview of org activity.

E

Engine
See Core.

H

Hub
The right panel in Cosmo's three-panel layout (Sidebar → Chat → Hub). The AI-generated, real-time canvas for artifacts and workspace navigation. Contains tabs for Dashboard, Tasks, Workspaces, and Connectors. Artifacts appear here as they stream.

Hub Memory
Org-level AI memory. Shared across all teams and workspaces. Contains organization-wide preferences, brand guidelines, and cross-workspace patterns. Stored at /{orgId}/shared/hub-memory/.

I

Integration
A connection to an external service via an MCP server. Examples: Google Drive, Notion, Linear, GitHub. Each integration provides a set of tools the AI can invoke. Also called a "connector".

IPC (Inter-Process Communication)
The mechanism Electron uses to communicate between the main process (Node.js) and the renderer process (React). Cosmo's desktop app exposes a typed API surface (window.cosmoDesktop) via the preload script.

M

MCP (Model Context Protocol)
An open standard developed by Anthropic for giving AI structured, tool-based access to external services. Each MCP server exposes a set of named tools. Cosmo uses MCP for all integrations.

MCP Server
A process that implements the MCP protocol, exposing tools to AI. Can run locally (stdio transport) or remotely (SSE or streamable HTTP transport). Cosmo connects to MCP servers to power integrations.

Member
A user who belongs to an organization. Every active member counts as one seat for billing purposes. Pending invitations also count as seats.

Memory
AI-managed context that persists across sessions. Stored as plain files in cloud storage (not a vector database). Exists at three levels: Workspace, Team, and Hub (org-level). Readable and editable by users.

Model
The specific AI model used in a conversation. Examples: Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.7, GPT-4o. Models vary in capability, speed, and cost. Switchable at any time in the chat panel.

Monorepo
Cosmo's codebase structure — all packages (core, cli, desktop, web, server, sdk, docs, shared-ui) live in one repository managed with pnpm workspaces and Turborepo.

O

OAuth
An authorization standard used by many integrations (Google Drive, Notion, ClickUp, Atlassian). Cosmo redirects you to the service's consent screen, then stores the resulting tokens. OAuth tokens may expire and require reconnection.

Organization
The top-level tenant boundary in Cosmo. Owns billing, members, MCP configurations, and all data. Every user belongs to at least one organization. Abbreviated "org".

P

Personal Team
A private team automatically created for every user in each organization. Personal workspaces live here and are not visible to other org members.

Plan
The subscription tier for an organization: Free, Standard, Premium, or Enterprise. Each plan has different limits on members, MCP connections, tokens per day, and features.

Preload Script
In Electron, the preload script runs in a sandboxed context bridging main and renderer processes. Cosmo's preload script exposes the CosmoDesktopAPI (accessible as window.cosmoDesktop) to the React renderer.

Provider
An AI provider — Anthropic or OpenAI. Cosmo supports both through the same interface. Enterprise plans can use BYO provider credentials.

R

REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop)
The interactive terminal session started by running cosmo in the CLI. Lets you chat with AI, manage workspaces, and use tools from the command line.

Role
The access level of a member within an organization: Owner, Admin, Member, or Viewer. Controls what actions the member can take.

S

SDK
The @cosmohq/sdk package — published to npm. The public, versioned API for building applications on top of the Cosmo platform.

Seat
A billing unit. One active member = one seat. Pending invitations also reserve a seat. Seats determine how much you pay on per-user pricing plans.

Session
A single conversation thread. Sessions are saved automatically with AI-generated titles and are searchable from the sidebar. A session has an optional workspace context.

Sidebar
The left panel in Cosmo's three-panel layout. Contains the session list, navigation to Dashboard and Workspaces, the user profile menu, and plan/trial indicator.

Skill
A pre-built AI capability for structured workflows. Skills are prompt packages — encoded instructions for generating specific types of outputs (executive reports, proposals, one-pagers, etc.). Selectable at the start of a conversation.

Slug
A URL-friendly version of a name. Workspaces have slugs for use in API references.

SSE (Server-Sent Events)
A protocol for server-to-client streaming over HTTP. Cosmo uses SSE for real-time updates from the server to the desktop app (workspace sync, artifact updates).

Standard Plan
Cosmo's mid-tier paid plan at $19/user/month. Includes cloud sync, 1 member seat, 10 MCP connections, and 2M tokens/user/day.

T

Task
A work item tracked in Cosmo. Tasks have a title, status, priority, assignee, due date, workspace, tags, and description. Created and managed via AI chat or the Tasks tab in the Hub. AI can reprioritize and suggest urgency.

Team
The access boundary within an organization. Controls who can see and contribute to the workspaces it contains. Every user gets a personal team automatically.

Team Memory
Team-scoped AI memory. Shared across all workspaces in a team. Contains team conventions, working agreements, and shared knowledge. Stored at /{orgId}/teams/{teamId}/memory/.

Token
The atomic unit of AI text. One token is approximately 4 characters or 0.75 words. Token limits are per user, per day.

Transport
The communication channel between Cosmo and an MCP server. Options: stdio (local process), SSE (remote, streaming), streamable-http (remote, HTTP streaming).

Trial
Every new organization gets a 14-day free trial of the Standard plan with no credit card required.

V

Viewer
A role with read-only access to workspaces they've been granted access to. Cannot create artifacts, start sessions, or modify workspace settings.

W

Workspace
The primary user-created container for work. Scopes artifacts, memory, integrations, and skills. Belongs to a team. Think of it as a dedicated space for a specific project or initiative.

Workspace Memory
Workspace-scoped AI memory. Contains decisions, terminology, context, and conventions specific to this workspace. Stored at /{orgId}/workspaces/{workspaceId}/memory/.

Workspace Sync
The process of synchronizing workspace data (artifacts, memory) between the desktop app and cloud storage. Uses SSE for real-time change feeds.