vocabulary

NLPM Domain Vocabulary

The canonical noun-and-verb set NLPM uses to name what it does. Every artifact name, command name, agent name, rule wording, and prose description should draw from this registry. Synonyms are flagged by /nlpm:check and penalized by /nlpm:score.

Sister skill: nlpm:conventions holds upstream Claude Code framework terms (hook events, frontmatter fields, manifest keys). This skill holds NLPM-internal domain language. If a term is from Anthropic's docs, it belongs in conventions. If it is from NLPM's own corpus, it belongs here.

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How this registry is built

Every term listed below has literary warrant — it appears in at least one NLPM artifact today, captured by analysis/scripts/extract-vocabulary.py. Re-run that script after adding or renaming artifacts; the freshest output lives at analysis/vocabulary-extract/summary.md. New terms enter the registry only after one of the four warrant types from analysis/vocabulary-design-principles.md (P6) is satisfied — literary warrant alone is the entry bar for terms already in use; new coinages need user, structural, or domain warrant.

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Two scopes (P1)

NLPM has two declared scopes. A homonym across them is a boundary, not a collision.

Scope	Lives in	What it operates on
internal	commands/, agents/, skills/, bin/, scripts/, project CLAUDE.md	NLPM's own behavior — scoring, checking, fixing, testing, listing, trending NL artifacts in the current project.
auditor	.github/workflows/auditor-*.yml, auditor/	The self-evolution pipeline that audits external repos, opens contribution PRs, tracks outcomes, refines rules.

A verb that appears in both scopes (scan, test, discover) carries the same identity criterion in both — these are sanctioned homonyms. A verb that appears in only one scope (audit, contribute, track in auditor; score, check, fix, ls, trend, init in internal) is scope-bound; using it in the other scope requires either renaming or declaring a second scope-specific definition.

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Verbs

Internal scope (NLPM commands)

Canonical verb	Output	Judgment?	Examples in corpus
score	number + penalty list	no (deterministic)	commands/score.md, agents/scorer.md
check	consistency violation list	no (deterministic)	commands/check.md, agents/checker.md
test	pass/fail against named specs	no (deterministic)	commands/test.md, agents/tester.md
scan	pattern-match findings against a signature database	no (deterministic)	commands/security-scan.md, agents/vague-scanner.md, agents/security-scanner.md
fix	mutated artifact	no (mechanical)	commands/fix.md
ls	inventory of artifacts	no	commands/ls.md, agents/scanner.md
trend	history report	no	commands/trend.md
init	config file	no	commands/init.md

Deprecated synonyms (do not use in internal scope):

• lint, validate → use check (structural) or score (quality)
• find, search, list → use ls
• analyze → use score (if quantitative) or pick a more specific verb
• audit → not in internal scope; live in auditor scope only

Auditor scope (.github/workflows/auditor-*.yml, auditor/scripts/)

Canonical verb	Output	Judgment?	Examples in corpus
discover	candidate-repo list	no	auditor-discover.yml
audit	composite quality + security report	yes	auditor-audit.yml
contribute	PR(s) to target repo	no	auditor-contribute.yml
track	outcome events appended to events.jsonl	no	auditor-track.yml
classify	categorical label on a PR comment	no (model-deterministic)	auditor-classify.yml
refine	rule-edit PR (human-gated)	no (LLM-generated, human-merged)	auditor-refine-rules.yml
cite	citation-edit PR (human-gated)	no	auditor-cite-exemplars.yml, propose-rule-citations.py
diff	finding-by-finding comparison	no	diff-findings.py, auditor-docs-diff.yml
report	rolled-up summary at a cadence	no	auditor-daily-report.yml, generate-daily-report.py
review	rule-review issue body (human reads, decides)	yes (human)	auditor-rule-review.yml, generate-rule-review-body.py
propose	a draft for human approval	no	propose-rule-citations.py
validate	yes/no on a structural rule	no	validate-feedback.sh, validate-rule-ids.py

Sibling-granularity note (P1): report is broader than its peers (classify, refine, cite, diff). The auditor's noun-named workflow convention absorbs this — workflows that produce reports are noun-named after the output (auditor-daily-report, auditor-rule-review), and the verb report is the generic act behind that family. Documented inconsistency, not a P1 violation; flagged here so future additions don't replicate the pattern without intent.

Cross-scope homonyms (same meaning in both scopes):

• scan — pattern-match against a signature database (used by security-scan command and scan-suppressions.py)
• test — pass/fail against named specs (used by /nlpm:test and auditor-integration-test.yml)
• discover — produce a candidate list (/nlpm:ls description text and auditor-discover.yml)

Verbs proposed but not entered

Per the precedence order in analysis/vocabulary-design-principles.md (P6 last; warrant is an entry check, not a veto), proposed terms split into two lists.

Deferred (P2–P5 satisfied; awaiting warrant):

Proposed verb	Closure gap or judgment named	Warrant needed
triage	Finding-disposition (P4 closure: finding has no consumer verb)	User warrant — practitioner reaches for the term unprompted
review (internal scope)	Human-in-the-loop reading, sanctioned cross-scope homonym with auditor review	User warrant — practitioner names a review act in internal artifacts
rationalize	Vocabulary curation (P5: act of picking canonical from extracted frequencies has no name)	User warrant — practitioner names the curation act

Deferred terms are documented but not yet canonical. R51 does not flag them as deprecated — they are nameless gaps, not synonyms.

Rejected by higher principle (no entry possible regardless of warrant):

Proposed verb	Blocking principle	Reason
audit (internal scope)	P1	Merge test fails — score+check already cover internal-scope evaluation
lint (internal scope)	P1	Synonym of check; same identity criterion
validate (internal scope)	P1	Collapses to check in internal scope (canonical in auditor scope)
analyze (internal scope)	P1	Synonym of score; quantitative evaluation

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Nouns

Artifact-class nouns (rigid; survive state changes)

Canonical noun	What it is	Examples
artifact	any NL programming file Claude Code consumes	umbrella term
command	commands/*.md, invoked via /<plugin>:<command>	commands/score.md
agent	agents/*.md, invoked via Task tool with subagent_type	agents/scorer.md
skill	skills/<plugin>/<name>/SKILL.md, auto-loaded by description match	skills/nlpm/rules/SKILL.md
rule	a numbered item (R01–R50) inside the rules skill	inside skills/nlpm/rules/SKILL.md
hook	shell script wired via hooks.json	hooks/hooks.json
manifest	plugin.json or marketplace.json	.claude-plugin/plugin.json
frontmatter	YAML block delimited by --- at the top of a Markdown file	every command, agent, skill

Implementation-role nouns (P2/P3 — agent names ride alongside command verbs)

Role-noun	Paired verb	File
scanner	ls	agents/scanner.md
scorer	score	agents/scorer.md
checker	check	agents/checker.md
tester	test	agents/tester.md
vague-scanner	score (sub-step)	agents/vague-scanner.md
security-scanner	scan	agents/security-scanner.md

These are not top-level verbs in their own right (P3). They are role-names for sub-step agents. Treat them as nouns naming the worker, not as operations on artifacts.

Output-class nouns (produced by verbs)

Noun	Produced by	Notes
score	score verb	number 0–100 + penalty breakdown
finding	score, check, scan	one problem detected; carries a fingerprint in auditor scope
violation	check	a finding specifically from cross-reference checking
penalty	score	the points subtracted by a single finding
snapshot	score, trend	a point-in-time record appended to .claude/nlpm-history.json
inventory	ls	the list of artifacts discovered in a path
report	audit, report, trend	a roll-up document
spec	test	a .nlpm-test/*.spec.md file defining expected behavior

Auditor-scope nouns (only meaningful inside auditor/)

Noun	What it is	File evidence
case-study	post-merge article comparing original audit to HEAD	auditor/audits/<slug>.re-audit.md
exemplar	teaching artifact from a high-scoring audit	auditor/exemplars/<slug>.md
fingerprint	content-hash identity of a finding across re-runs	compute-fingerprint.sh
event	one append-only record in events.jsonl	auditor/logs/events.jsonl
disagreement	self/maintainer dispute over a finding	auditor/disagreements.jsonl
registry	the tracked-repo database	auditor/registry/repos.json
disposition	a finding's lifecycle status	enum values inside events.jsonl
policy gate	a pre-PR check (no-external-PRs, CLA, pushback)	auditor-contribute.yml

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The bright-line table (P1, P5)

When the evaluation cluster overlaps in practice, use this table to disambiguate:

Verb	Scope	Deterministic?	Judgment?	Output	Use when
score	internal	yes	no	number + penalty list	quantifying quality with a rubric
check	internal	yes	no	violation list	verifying cross-references and structural consistency
test	both	yes	no	pass/fail	comparing actual behavior against a named spec
scan	both	yes	no	findings against signatures	pattern-matching for a known class of problems
audit	auditor	partly	yes	composite report	full quality assessment that combines score + scan + judgment
review	auditor	no	yes (human)	comment trail	a human reads and forms an opinion

Two verbs share a scope and an identity criterion ⇒ one must be retired or scope-split. Two verbs share an identity criterion across scopes ⇒ that is a sanctioned homonym (declare it in this table).

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How to extend this registry

1. Add a term only if it has warrant. The four warrant types come from analysis/vocabulary-design-principles.md P6: literary, user, structural, domain. Literary warrant is automatic via the extraction script — if the script picks the term up, it qualifies.
2. Re-run the extraction script. python3 analysis/scripts/extract-vocabulary.py writes analysis/vocabulary-extract/summary.md. New terms appear there.
3. Slot the term. Add a row to the right table above (internal verb / auditor verb / artifact-class noun / role-noun / output-class noun / auditor-scope noun).
4. Cite the file evidence. Every row has an "examples" or "file evidence" column. Cite at least one path.
5. If retiring a synonym, list it under its canonical verb's "deprecated synonyms" line. Do not silently drop terms; deprecation is itself a vocabulary act and needs to be visible.

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Deferred work (documented, not yet executed)

Item	Why deferred	What unblocks it
Per-rule warrant tags on R01–R50	Requires reading every rule + judging which warrant it earns its place by. User warrant data lives in rule-health.py outputs.	A separate auditor-refine-rules follow-up pass that combines rule-health data with this principle set.
Adding triage as a /nlpm:triage command	P4 closure gap is real but triage has zero literary warrant today. User warrant is the missing evidence.	A practitioner reaching for the word unprompted in actual NLPM use.
Resolving the agent-name-vs-command-name shadowing (scanner/ls, scorer/score)	Already documented above as a class boundary; no rename proposed.	A confirmed case of practitioner confusion. None observed today.
(resolved 2026-05-19) Workflow filename convention	Declared as sanctioned split. See "Auditor workflow filename convention" below.	—

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Auditor workflow filename convention

.github/workflows/auditor-*.yml filenames follow a two-rule split, both sanctioned:

Pattern	Use when	Examples
auditor-<verb>	The workflow changes state (gates a transition, opens a PR, classifies, moves a finding through its lifecycle)	auditor-audit.yml, auditor-contribute.yml, auditor-track.yml, auditor-classify.yml, auditor-refine-rules.yml, auditor-cite-exemplars.yml, auditor-discover.yml
auditor-<output-noun>	The workflow's purpose is to produce a named artifact that downstream tooling consumes by name	auditor-case-study.yml, auditor-exemplar.yml, auditor-daily-report.yml, auditor-suppressions.yml, auditor-docs-diff.yml, auditor-rule-review.yml

By P3, both patterns produce or gate, so both pass the top-level-verb test. The split is genuine: noun-named workflows are named after what they write, verb-named workflows after what they do.

Outlier: auditor-batch-processor.yml is named after a process role, not a verb or an output noun. Rename candidate: auditor-promote-batch. Deferred — git history, badge, and external references make the rename costly, and the existing name has literary warrant.

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Scope note

This skill loads on requests to write, review, or name NLPM artifacts. For framework-level facts (hook event names, manifest field schemas, Claude Code naming conventions), see [[conventions]]. For the 50 quality rules (R01–R50), see [[rules]]. For penalty tables, see [[scoring]].