glossary

A plain-language glossary of AI agent terms from primary sources: agent vs workflow, skills, three kinds of memory, RAG, and pipelines.

TL;DR: Agents decide their own next steps while workflows run on fixed code paths, and the distinction comes down to who holds the steering wheel. Skills are procedural SOP files loaded only when needed, unlike memory, which carries procedural, semantic, or episodic information across sessions. Pipelines add triggers, gates, and watchdogs to make autonomous agents trustworthy.