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SUPPORTING KNOWLEDGE · 0017

Glossary

The words Berd uses, condensed from its own help references, bundled skills, laws and interface strings, with the closest Buzz equivalent where one exists. Where Berd and Buzz mean the same thing by a word, the Buzz Guide article is linked rather than re-explained. A dash in the last column means Buzz has no counterpart; that is usually the point, not a gap.

Term What it means in Berd Closest thing in Buzz
Agent (persona) A saved configuration a session runs against: name, avatar, provider and model, and its own instructions. One markdown file with YAML frontmatter under ~/.agents/agents/ or a project's .agents/agents/. Must have a provider and model before it can be invoked. See Agents are cast, not modes. An agent, but with its own identity, channel membership and audit trail; see Agents as colleagues, not bots
Artifact A file opened from a session into the side viewer. Since v0.6.3 the viewer follows the file on disk, including external edits and deletion. A canvas, or shared media
Automation A saved, re-runnable task with a schedule, a run history and a detail view, built conversationally in a builder chat and approved into a tile. Not in the v0.6.4 public build (VITE_AUTOMATIONS=0); Block's internal distribution has it. For "do it on its own" in the public build, see Monitor / orchestrator. See Automations: built by talking. A workflow
berdctl The app-bundled command-line tool agents use to drive the visible app, as berdctl <noun> <verb>; every verb maps to something you can see happen in the interface. --help is its reference; --json gives parseable output. The Buzz command-line client, roughly
Berdy The built-in agent that shows you around Berd and learns how you work; the one that proposes memories, never saves them silently, and never sends anything as you. See Berdy. —
Buzz Handoff The published skill (skills/buzz-handoff) that reads a Buzz thread or channel into a private Berd conversation and can send back one approved reply. See Start alone, then go multiplayer. The other end of the same bridge
Compaction Summarising older context so the model's window has room again. On demand from the toolbar; automatic at a threshold for Goose sessions. See Context, compaction and cost. A harness behaviour there too
Connection An OAuth sign-in to an external service from Berd's catalog, through which an agent can act. Can be company-managed, expiring or expired. Not in the v0.6.4 public build (VITE_MANAGED_CONNECTIONS=0 empties the catalog); there, an Extension is how an agent reaches a service. See Connections, extensions and who manages them. Access an agent is granted to a real system
Dictation Transcribe-and-submit from the composer microphone: what you say lands in the message box, "submit" sends it. Not in the v0.6.4 public build (VITE_VOICE_DICTATION=0); Voice Conversation is the public voice route. —
Discover A tab in the skills view that lists skills from Block's internal sq-agents CLI. Not in the v0.6.4 public build (VITE_SKILL_DISCOVERY=0); the public sources of skills are bundled, personal and project. —
Doctor The in-app diagnostic that runs health checks on Berd, agents and tools and offers to run a fix command, shown before it runs. Reached from the system section of Settings, in builds whose runtime configuration supplies it; not verified for the public build. —
Experiment A user-local preference for unstable behaviour; off by default in production builds. The settings text says experiments can change, break or disappear. —
Extension A directly configured tool integration (stdio, SSE, streamable HTTP, ACP or builtin) supplied by you or an administrator; what most people mean by "an MCP server". An MCP server available to an agent's harness
Global hints The standing rules every Goose session follows, in ~/.config/goose/AGENTS.md. Rules, not facts. See How Berd remembers you. An agent's instructions, roughly
Gloopie Berd's avatar characters. A custom gloopie made for one agent is reusable on others since v0.6.3. An agent's avatar
Harness The agent runtime a session runs on: Goose (bundled), Claude, Codex, Copilot, Amp, Cursor or Pi. Chosen per session; some Berd features need Goose. See App vs harness. The same concept; see Model vs. harness
Home canvas The spatial home screen of pinnable widgets, agents, chats, projects and skills (and automation output, in distributions that enable automations). See The Home canvas. —
MCP app An interactive app an extension renders inline in the chat. Since v0.6.4 it must ask for explicit confirmation before it sends a message as you. —
Memory Categorised facts and preferences the memory extension keeps under ~/.config/goose/memory/, in plain text, saved only with your word-for-word yes. Goose's, not Berd's. Agent memory kept on the relay
Monitor / orchestrator Two bundled skills (v0.6.3): berd-monitor runs a long command outside the turn and wakes the session with its output, labelled as such; berd-orchestrator delegates work to other sessions through berdctl and brings back one result or decision. Agents delegating to each other in a thread
Project Chats grouped around one or more working directories, with a standing description every chat receives and a startup mode for how new chats treat each Git folder. Archived projects live in Settings, not the Projects view. A channel, roughly
Provider The credentialed connection between a model and Berd. Saving credentials triggers a live model-list fetch that doubles as verification. See Provider errors mean four things. A provider configured for the harness
Queue / steer Messages accepted while a turn runs or a chat starts are queued in order and dispatched when the session is ready; steering pushes the first queued message into the running turn instead (Goose only). See Queue, steer and dispatch. —
Right rail The session's context panel: attached workspaces, a changes view (git status and diff), an artifacts view, and a dockable terminal. Scoped to this session's attachments, not the project. —
Session / chat One conversation with an agent. "Chat" is the informal word for the same object. Can be renamed, moved into a project, forked, archived, exported, and opened in its own window. A thread in a channel
Skill A folder with a SKILL.md (frontmatter plus instructions) matched against a request and loaded when relevant. Bundled, personal or project; personal beats bundled on a name clash. See Skills: three sources and one precedence rule. The same idea; see What a skill is
Workspace A folder, repo or worktree, either held by a project or attached to a session. A project's repository in a channel, roughly
Worktree A separate git working copy of a repo, created per chat when the project's policy for that Git folder says so. A worktree Goose created is deleted from disk when removed, uncommitted changes included. —

Terms Berd's own files use that this Coach does not: persona (an older name for agent, still in the help skill), G2 (an internal Block project named in one sticky-note string), sq-agents (a Block-internal CLI the public build does not ship).

Last checked: Berd v0.6.4, 2026-09-11.

Reference

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Berd v0.6.4 · 2026-09-11
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Guide built with Berd, Claude and Codex · verified against Berd v0.6.4, 2026-09-11 · read from source, not yet tested in the app · Buzz Guide · About · not affiliated with Block