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OpenTendril taxonomy
What do the botanical terms mean, and why does OpenTendril split common agent concepts into separate words?
OpenTendril uses a synthetic biological vocabulary so each architectural job gets one precise name. The industry word “agent” often collapses mind, body, sandbox, caller, identity, orchestrator, and session into one overloaded label. OpenTendril assigns those jobs to different terms because they have different trust, lifecycle, and authority properties.
Vocabulary authority for the website. Primary sources in the product repository are GLOSSARY.md (terminology-first), SYNTHETIC-TAXONOMY.md (concept-first), and the Stem-injected taxonomy-canonical.md. If this page conflicts with those files, the live repository glossary is canonical and this page is stale.
Why not just say “agent”?
Precision is the purpose. A conventional “agent” often mixes objects that OpenTendril refuses to treat as one thing:
- mind and reasoning Mycorrhizal Network
- execution body Sprout
- sandbox boundary Terrarium
- external requester Pollinator
- identity (principal) Pollen
- orchestrator Stem
- persistent session Phytomer
Collapsing those labels is how systems lose track of who may act, what may reason, what is sealed, and what a human is still responsible for. See also why governed autonomous work and current architecture.
High-level organism
Concept-first overview using primary terms. This is illustrative anatomy, not a claim that every secondary botanical concept is a distinct runtime service.
Cultivation lifecycle (conceptual)
Taxonomy describes a cultivation loop. A concise public sequence:
- Seed: intent (goal) is planted.
- Phytomer: a session (interaction thread) opens.
- Sprout emerges into a Terrarium.
- grow: the Sprout works its Transcript, drawing inference through Roots from the Mycorrhizal Network when needed.
- mature or wither: success, or failure and shed.
- Fruit: where produced, Git-reviewable yield is available for review.
- Botanist decides acceptance: human gate; not automatic merge.
Vocabulary vs implemented handoff
The vascular “carry diffs home” language is conceptual taxonomy, not a universal Git execution rule. Current implementation has several Git paths: ordinary local Sprout runs may fast-forward shadow-worktree commits into a host checkout when merge-back is enabled; seed and other review-preserving paths can disable that merge-back; delegated Git operations are separately governed.
Fruit remains Git-reviewable yield; the Botanist decides acceptance. A local Git reconciliation is therefore not synonymous with Fruit acceptance.
Canonical term table
Primary terms used across the public site. Definitions track current
GLOSSARY.md. Stable anchors support deep links (for example
/taxonomy#stem).
| OpenTendril term | Direct definition | Standard IT or AI | Role and lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Botanist | The human who studies and cultivates the organism: plants Seeds, prunes, reviews Fruit, and observes through the Greenhouse. | Operator or developer | external |
| Pollinator | An external requester that reaches in and asks for governed work. Carries Pollen; granted operation-classes; no grant, no access. | External API caller (client) | external |
| Pollen | The identity a Pollinator presents and a grant names: the trust-root a delegated invocation is authorised as. | Subject (principal) | per-connection |
| Stem | The deterministic Go orchestrator, lifecycle kernel, and governed capability registry. Not a reasoning component; LLM cognition belongs to the Mycorrhizal Network. | Core orchestrator (backend) | persistent |
| Branch | A capability group (security zone) the Stem initialises at boot. | Capability group (security zone) | persistent |
| Roots | OpenTendril’s own connectivity organ: provider clients, model discovery, and tier routing that reach into the Rhizosphere to draw inference from the Mycorrhizae. | Provider client (SDK layer) | persistent |
| Mycorrhizal Network | The LLM: the external mind that reasons; holds no state. | Large Language Model | external |
| Sprout | An ephemeral, strictly isolated worker that does one unit of work. | Worker container | ephemeral |
| Terrarium | The isolation boundary (filesystem + network) around a Sprout. | Sandbox or container | ephemeral |
| Stoma | The single controlled aperture in a Terrarium wall: the guest-side listener through which commands enter and results leave. | Guest agent (init process) in a micro-VM | ephemeral |
| Substrate | The repository being cultivated (the soil). | Target repo (codebase) | persistent |
| Phytomer | A session: one persistent interaction thread; the repeating module the Meristem initiates and Sprouts emerge from. | Session (interaction thread) | persistent |
| Plasmid | A modular, injectable block of context or tools (a skill). | RAG context or tool definition | definition |
| Sequence | A YAML-defined execution DAG of dependency-linked steps with cycle detection and concurrent scheduling. | Agentic pipeline or workflow | definition |
| Seed | The originating goal, intent, or use-case; the blueprint work grows from. | Product goal, use-case, or intent | definition |
| Transcript | One instruction for one growth (a single task). | User prompt or task | per-run |
| Greenhouse | The Command Center UI the Botanist observes through. | Dashboard (observability UI) | external |
| Fruit | Git-reviewable output a cycle yields (a branch, PR, or artifact); the Botanist decides acceptance. | Output (deliverable) | per-cycle |
| Terroir | The host OS and machine this instance grows on. | Host system (OS) | environment |
| Rhizosphere | The external ecosystem the Roots tap: the LLM providers, Docker, git, MCP themselves. | Underlying tech stack and dependencies | environment |
| Hardiness | What a Terroir can withstand: whether its conditions permit the delegation boundary to be enforced rather than merely recorded. Reports posture; does not make acceptance decisions. | Deployment security posture | environment |
| Tendril | Concept and brand only: the organism’s reaching-out-and-integrating character. Never a component. | (the project itself) |
Standard IT → OpenTendril
Compact reverse mapping where the glossary is clear. Not every industry phrase maps one-to-one.
| Standard term | OpenTendril |
|---|---|
| LLM | Mycorrhizal Network |
| Worker process or container | Sprout |
| Sandbox (isolation boundary) | Terrarium |
| External API caller (client) | Pollinator |
| Subject (principal) | Pollen |
| Orchestrator (backend) | Stem |
| Session (interaction thread) | Phytomer |
| Repository (codebase) | Substrate |
| Observability UI | Greenhouse |
| Reviewable output (deliverable) | Fruit |
| Provider client layer | Roots |
| Workflow or pipeline | Sequence |
| Agent (autonomous worker) | Sprout (body) + Mycorrhizae (mind); deliberately decomposed |
Explicit non-conflations
Architecture guidance, not trivia:
- Sprout ≠ Stem: worker body versus orchestrator and registry.
- Sprout ≠ Terrarium: body versus isolation wall.
- Pollinator ≠ Sprout: external requester versus internal worker.
- Mycorrhizae ≠ Stem: external LLM versus deterministic control plane.
- Pollen ≠ Pollinator: identity presented versus actor presenting it.
- Branch (taxonomy) ≠ Git branch: capability zone versus source-control ref.
- Fruit ≠ merge: reviewable yield versus acceptance and integration.
- Tendril ≠ component: brand and organising concept only.
- Greenhouse ≠ Stem: observation UI versus control plane.
- Roots ≠ Rhizosphere: OpenTendril connectivity organ versus external ecosystem.
Canonical authority
The live repository glossary is canonical. If website terminology conflicts with it, the website is stale. Runtime behaviour claims still require implementation verification: a conceptual term can be described without claiming every manifestation is implemented. Start from Docs for repository guides, and from Architecture for current system structure.