Glossary

Typeshift reuses Microsoft.Extensions.AI's words wherever it can: a run returns a ChatResponse, and an IChatClient serves a model. The terms below are Typeshift's own, or mean something narrower here.

Term	Meaning
Agent	A partial class deriving from Agent that bundles chat options, instructions, tools and their settings for one job. See Agents.
Agent host	AgentHost<TAgent>, which runs one agent with the services of the scope it was resolved from. See Using an agent.
Approval request	The ToolApprovalRequestContent a run ends with when it needs approval. You answer it in the conversation's next run. See Approval and modes.
Approval rule	An IToolApprovalRule that approves, rejects or abstains on a tool call before your app is asked.
Chat client provider	The IChatClientProvider your app registers with WithChatClientProvider<T>(), which returns the IChatClient for a provider and a model.
Code defaults	The values a settings record's parameterless constructor sets, the lowest layer.
Compaction	Shrinking the history a model call sees once it nears a token limit. See Compaction.
Configurable	A settings member or an option that stored settings or a run may change, marked in code with Configurable(...) or WithConfigurableSettings<T>(). Everything else keeps the value the code sets.
Context provider	An IContextProvider that adds instructions, messages or tools to every run of the agents that use it.
Conversation	The entries a run stores under a conversation id: inputs, model responses, tool results and run endings. See Conversations.
Declaration	The chain of calls in a toolset's or agent's constructor, such as AddTool(...).ReadOnly(). The generator reads it at compile time, and at runtime it only records values.
Diagnostic	A TSHnnn error or warning the analyzer reports for a mistake in a toolset, an agent or the setup. See Diagnostics.
Generated member	A member the source generator writes into or next to your toolsets and agents. See Generated members.
Handoff	A tool, handoff_to_{name}, declared with UseHandoff<T>(), that hands the conversation to another agent. See Multiple agents.
Host	Short for agent host, AgentHost<TAgent>. The application that uses Typeshift is "your app".
Id type	The type of every settings id and conversation id in a build: Guid unless TypeshiftIdType names another.
Kind	The stable name a store keeps a document under. An agent's settings kind is its class name, or the name WithStorageKind("...") sets.
Layer	One source of settings: the code defaults, the agent's code, the stored settings or the run. A higher layer overrides a lower one, and a conversation's mode sits between the stored settings and the run.
Middleware	An IRunMiddleware around every run, or an IToolMiddleware around every tool call.
Mode	Default, Plan or Auto, which decides what a run offers the model and what happens to tools that require approval. See The three modes.
Module	The registration the generator writes for each assembly that declares toolsets or agents. AddTypeshift() registers the modules of the project and its references.
Overrides	The generated {Tool}Overrides record, a tool's configurable settings with each one nullable. Null keeps the layer below.
Provider id type	The type of every provider id in a build, such as the provider in WithModel(provider, model): string unless TypeshiftProviderIdType names another. See Models and providers.
Raw path	Resolving a run's options and creating its IChatClient yourself, for when your app needs the client. See Running agents.
Run	One call of RunAsync, RunAsync<T>, RunStreamingAsync, ResumeAsync, ResumeStreamingAsync or the raw path's client: the model calls and tool calls until the model answers.
Run options	How a run's tool loop goes, with its mode, its limits and compaction. Set with WithRunOptions().
Schema version	The number in a stored document's JSON, "$schemaVersion", that names the shape of the record that wrote it: 1 unless the agent's WithSchemaVersion(n) raises it. Reading a newer one fails. See The stored JSON.
Settings	An agent's generated Settings record, with exactly the values that may change at runtime. Stored under a settings id, or passed for one run.
Settings id	The id your app stores an agent's Settings under, such as one per customer, team or user.
Settings record	The record a tool receives its settings in, declared with WithSettings<T>() or WithConfigurableSettings<T>(). The model never sees it.
Stamp	A hidden attribute the generator writes so that other assemblies can read a toolset's tools or a project's module.
Standing approval	An approval for every later call of a tool in a conversation, given with ApproveForConversation().
Steering	Input a user sends while a run works, which you hand to that run with ConversationTracker.TrySteer. See Steering.
Store	What your app registers with WithStore<T>() to keep settings (ISettingsStore), conversations (IConversationStore) or both (ITypeshiftStore). See Settings and stores.
Sub-agent	Another agent offered as a tool with UseAgent<T>(). It works in a context of its own and answers with text.
Tool	A static method that a toolset or an agent declares with AddTool, offered to the model as a generated AIFunction.
Tool list	ToolList<TToolset>, the type Include and Exclude pick tools from. The generated {Toolset}ToolList gives it one property per tool.
Toolset	A partial class deriving from Toolset that declares the tools of one domain. See Toolsets.
Version	The number that marks a stored document's current state; each save gives the document a new one. A save passes the version it loaded, so it fails when another save came first. Not the schema version. See Save with a version.

Related

• Getting started: how the pieces fit together.
• Writing style: for contributors, how these docs use the terms above.