The Agentic AI Glossary: Every Term you need to know

The agentic AI vocabulary exploded fast and the terms are scattered everywhere, each assuming you already know the rest. This is one place to look them up, the most common agentic AI terms defined in plain language and grouped by theme, from the agent loop and the harness to memory, retrieval, skills, safety, and evaluation. Built to be skimmed and bookmarked, not read in one sitting.

The agentic AI vocabulary exploded in a short span, scattered across papers, docs, and vendor blogs that each assume you already know the rest. This glossary pulls the most common terms into one place and defines each in plain language, organized by theme rather than alphabetically: foundations, reasoning patterns, tools and protocols, multi-agent architecture, the harness, context and memory, retrieval, skills, safety, operations, and the engineering disciplines. Built to be skimmed and looked up.