{"slug": "glossary", "title": "Glossary", "summary": "A glossary defines terms used in technical writing and AI, including agentic workflows, LLMs, MCP, RAG, and vibe coding, along with coined terms like devling, product truth, documentation theater, the Ferri Paradox, NVE docs, do11y, and the Columbo Technique.", "body_md": "# Glossary\n\nShort definitions for terms that come up often in these posts.\n\n## General terms\n\n### Agentic workflow\n\nA sequence of tasks carried out by an AI agent that plans, calls tools, and checks its own output with limited human intervention, as opposed to a single prompt-response exchange.\n\n### Docs as code\n\nThe practice of treating documentation like source code: stored in version control, reviewed through pull requests, and built through the same pipelines as software.\n\n### LLM (large language model)\n\nA machine learning model trained on large amounts of text that generates or transforms language, used here as shorthand for tools like Claude, GPT, or Gemini.\n\n### MCP (Model Context Protocol)\n\nAn open standard that lets LLMs call external tools and read external data sources through a common interface, rather than each integration being built from scratch.\n\n### RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)\n\nA technique where an LLM’s answer is grounded by first retrieving relevant passages from a document store, then generating a response based on those passages instead of the model’s training data alone.\n\n### Tech writer\n\nShorthand for technical writer: someone who researches, structures, and writes documentation, often bridging engineering, product, and support teams.\n\n### Vibe coding\n\nWriting software by iterating on prompts to an AI coding assistant rather than writing code by hand, often with limited review of the generated output.\n\n## Coined on this blog\n\nTerms and frameworks introduced (or adapted and renamed) in these posts, defined the way they were defined there.\n\n### Devling\n\nA technical writer who has grown proficient enough with code and developer\ntools to act as a trusted coding associate on an engineering team — not a\ndeveloper, but no longer just a spectator either. Coined as “young\ndeveloper, developer spawnling” in\n[Coding as a tech writer](https://passo.uno/tech-writer-learn-to-code/).\n\n### Product truth\n\nThe tension and nuance behind a mature feature — the support tickets,\ncustomer feedback, and sense of *unfinishedness* that shape a product but\nrarely make it into a spec. Pictured as concentric circles, from the\noutermost (what exists and where) to the innermost (why), in\n[Circles of Product Truth](https://passo.uno/circles-product-truth/).\n\n### Documentation theater\n\nThe act of creating documentation for its own sake — so a box can be\nchecked, an issue closed, or a project completed — rather than to address\na real need. Named after developer Annie Mueller’s parody of tutorials in\n[When docs become performance art, everybody loses](https://passo.uno/documentation-theater-everybody-loses/),\nwhere it’s also noted the author once called the same idea cargo-cult\ndocumentation.\n\n### Ferri Paradox\n\n“Any document describing a system is necessarily inaccurate.” Offered,\ntongue-in-cheek, as the reason to write docs quickly rather than chase an\nunreachable completeness, in\n[How I write docs quickly](https://passo.uno/how-write-tech-docs-quickly/).\n\n### Not-viable-enough docs (NVE docs)\n\nDocumentation that falls short of even “minimum viable” — usually a\nsymptom of underlying product issues rather than a writing problem.\nSometimes the only fix available is “palliative docs care”: content that\nhelps users cope with a flawed reality rather than fixing it. Introduced\nin [How I write docs quickly](https://passo.uno/how-write-tech-docs-quickly/).\n\n### do11y (documentation observability)\n\nTracking how docs and product usage interact — for example, whether a\nuser who hit an error, read the linked doc, and successfully retried\ntheir API call should count as a doc’s success. Modeled on software\nobservability (o11y) and coined in a conversation with Bob Watson, in\n[Docs observability, or measuring docs inside a product-docs system](https://passo.uno/docs-observability-do11y/).\n\n### The Columbo Technique\n\nAn approach to extracting information from subject-matter experts modeled\non Lieutenant Columbo: playing genially unassuming so SMEs correct,\nelaborate on, and ultimately confirm the details a document needs, rather\nthan simply answering direct questions. See\n[The Columbo Technique for Technical Writers](https://passo.uno/the-columbo-technique-for-technical-writers/).\n\n### The Seven-Action Documentation Model\n\nA framework for structuring docs around what users are trying to\naccomplish rather than what content type to produce: Appraise (Discern),\nUnderstand (Learn), Explore (Discover), Practice (Train), Remember\n(Recall), Develop (Integrate), and Troubleshoot (Solve). See\n[The Seven-Action Documentation model](https://passo.uno/seven-action-model/).\n\n### Docs Hierarchy of Priorities\n\nA Maslow-style pyramid of what a documentation effort needs before the\nnext level becomes possible, starting with an organization simply\nrecognizing that docs — and someone accountable for them — are needed at\nall. See\n[Docs Hierarchy of Priorities: A Proposal](https://passo.uno/docs-hierarchy-of-needs/).\n\n### Context curator\n\nA technical writer who orchestrates and executes a content strategy\naround both human and AI needs — or AI needs alone — treating context,\nnot generic “content,” as the unit of value that AI systems actually draw\non. From\n[AI must RTFM: Why technical writers are becoming context curators](https://passo.uno/from-tech-writers-to-ai-context-curators/).\n\n### Peripheral professionals\n\nHumanists and artists — writers included — who bridge the gap between the\ntechnical core of software and the humans using it, and whose jobs are\noften first on the chopping block when AI reshapes what a company treats\nas essential. From\n[Technical writing predictions for 2025](https://passo.uno/tech-writing-predictions-2025/).\n\n### Tools slop\n\nThe flood of narrow, disposable tools that AI coding assistants make\ntrivial to spin up and tempting to over-promote, lacking the reach,\nsociality, and finish of a tool built to last beyond its own creator. See\n[Most vibe-coded tools are not for you](https://passo.uno/tools-slop-is-a-problem/).\n\n### Impersonaid\n\nA docs user simulator the author built: point it at a document, pick a\npersona, and hold a conversation about the content to see where a reader\ngets stuck — turning an argument about clarity into a reproducible\ntranscript. From\n[Conjuring digital companions: How I’m thinking better through AI](https://passo.uno/thinking-better-through-ai/).\n\n### Roles are verbs, not nouns\n\nA model for structuring a documentation team around four poles — Product\nVision, Knowledge Design, Engineering Depth, and Delivery Strategy —\nwhere people move fluidly between them instead of being locked into fixed\njob titles. From\n[In the team of the future, roles are verbs, not nouns](https://passo.uno/docs-team-of-the-future/).\n\n### The four modes of AI-augmented writing\n\nA framework for where AI fits into a technical writer’s workflow, from\nmost to least hands-on: the watercooler conversation (chat-based Q&A),\nthe whisperer (inline suggestions), the wordsmith (shaping drafts from\ncontext), and the assembly line (agentic checks, rewrites, and tests).\nSee\n[The four modes of AI-augmented technical writing](https://passo.uno/four-modes-ai-augmented-tech-writing/).\n\n### Documentation bestiary\n\nA satirical taxonomy of documentation content types cast as medieval\nbeasts: the Releasaurius (release notes), Realisticasius (scenarios),\nExamplanatii (examples), Solutionarius (troubleshooting), Optimarius\n(best practices), and Interfacilus (UX writing). See\n[Bestiary: On Doc Types and Other Animals](https://passo.uno/docs-bestiary-taxonomy/).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/glossary", "canonical_source": "https://passo.uno/glossary/", "published_at": "2026-07-01 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-18 15:52:25.499598+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-tools", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Claude", "GPT", "Gemini", "Annie Mueller", "Bob Watson"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/glossary", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/glossary.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/glossary.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/glossary.jsonld"}}