Glossary21 terms

Glossary of AI terms

Clear, jargon-free definitions of the terms you'll encounter in AI, MCP, and browsing productivity.

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21 terms

A

AI Agents AI systems that take a goal, plan a sequence of steps, and use tools to carry them out, rather than just answering a single question.

B

Browsing Context The collection of web pages, bookmarks, saves, and browsing signals that represent what you have found valuable online over time.

C

Context Switching The mental cost of shifting attention between different tools, tabs, platforms, or tasks while browsing, which fragments focus and slows knowledge work. Context Window The maximum amount of text an AI model can consider in a single request, measured in tokens, including both the input you send and the output it generates.

D

Digital Garden A public space for evolving notes and half-formed ideas, grown and tended over time, structured by connections rather than chronology.

K

Knowledge Graph A structured representation of information as a network of entities (nodes) and relationships (edges), used to store, query, and reason over connected data.

M

MCP Client An AI application that connects to MCP servers to access external tools, data sources, and prompts during conversations. MCP Server A program that exposes tools, resources, or prompts to AI assistants using the Model Context Protocol standard. Model Context Protocol (MCP) An open standard created by Anthropic in late 2024 that lets AI assistants connect to external tools, files, and data sources through a single, unified interface, often described as USB-C for AI tools.

P

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) The practice of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information you encounter so you can use it again later, usually through a system of notes, bookmarks, or links between ideas. Prompt Injection A security issue where untrusted content contains instructions that trick an AI model into ignoring its original task and following the attacker's commands instead.

R

Read-it-Later The practice of saving web articles, posts, and pages to a dedicated app or service to read at a more convenient time. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) A pattern where an AI model fetches relevant documents at query time and uses them as context, instead of relying only on what it learned during training.

S

Second Brain A personal knowledge management system that captures, organizes, and resurfaces information you have collected over time, extending your biological memory. Semantic Bookmarking Saving and organizing web content based on its meaning and topics rather than manual folder structures, typically using AI to understand and categorize content automatically. Semantic Search A search method that retrieves content based on meaning rather than exact keyword matches, typically powered by vector embeddings and similarity scoring.

T

Tab Hoarding The habit of keeping large numbers of browser tabs open as a way to remember or return to web content, often leading to browser slowdown and lost information. Tool Use (Function Calling) A capability that lets AI models invoke external functions or APIs during a conversation to fetch data, take actions, or interact with systems beyond their training data. Topic Clustering An AI technique that automatically groups saved content into thematic clusters based on content similarity, replacing manual folder organization.

V

Vector Embeddings Numerical representations of text, images, or other data that capture meaning, so similar content ends up with similar vectors and can be matched by concept rather than exact words.

Z

Zettelkasten A note-taking method built around atomic notes (one idea per note) connected by explicit links, designed to develop ideas over time and surface unexpected connections.
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