GLOSSARY
The language of execution recovery.
TAB introduces a precise vocabulary for where work stalls and how it gets recovered. These definitions align your team — and your stakeholders — with how we talk about execution.
01
Friction Event
A measurable point where work stalls between people, systems, or agents — a missed handoff, a reopened ticket, a stalled transition. The unit TAB measures, not a person’s behavior.
02
Execution Gap
The distance between work being known and work being done. Where intelligence exists but the action never completes — the space TAB was built to close.
03
Recovery Action
The next step TAB routes to the role, system, or agent best positioned to unblock stalled work. Recovery acts on the gap, not the person.
04
Adaptive Wrapper
The operating layer that expresses TAB’s fixed core engine in a specific team’s context — its tools, language, permissions, and rhythm. The wrapper adapts; the engine stays constant.
05
Core Engine
TAB’s fixed infrastructure: observation logic, breakdown detection, recovery orchestration, and a continuity model. The same engine under every adaptive wrapper.
06
Handoff
The transfer of work between people, systems, or agents. The seam where most execution breaks occur — and where TAB watches continuously.
07
Anonymous by Architecture
Anonymity enforced by system design, not policy. Friction signals are aggregated before reaching any human-facing view, so individuals are never identifiable in the recovery loop.
08
Bypass, Not Alert
TAB routes recovery through the right channel instead of adding another notification. It acts on the gap rather than alerting a person to watch it.
09
Coordination Layer
TAB’s role in the stack: a horizontal layer that sits alongside existing tools to detect gaps and route recovery — not a replacement for any of them.
10
Execution Recovery
The act of restoring stalled work to motion. TAB’s purpose: detect the gap, route the recovery, return the work to execution.
11
Recovery Routing
The logic that directs a recovery action to the role, system, or agent that owns the next step — based on the handoff graph TAB builds from your tooling.
12
Stalled Work
Work that has stopped progressing between handoffs — not failed, not closed, just stuck. The state TAB detects and recovers.
13
Continuity Model
The mechanism that keeps work moving across people, systems, and agents over time — preserving context and momentum across every handoff.
14
Breakdown Detection
The core engine’s ability to recognize when work has stopped progressing — distinguishing a true stall from normal latency.
15
Shadow AI
Unsanctioned AI usage that fills the gap where official tools fail to execute. TAB surfaces it structurally and routes recovery through approved workflows.
These terms are how TAB measures and recovers work — not how it watches people. For how the architecture enforces that distinction, see the FAQ.