What do all these words mean?

Plain definitions of every word codus puts on screen, in the order that matters: the words codus invented, then the words that mean something different here than elsewhere, then ordinary developer words explained without assuming you have met them.

If you are looking one up, use your browser's find (Cmd+F).

Words codus invented

You will not find these anywhere else, and codus does not explain them on screen.

Quadrant

One of the panes in the main grid. Each quadrant holds one project folder, one AI agent working on it, and its own terminal. Four of them on screen means four projects being worked on at once, side by side, independently.

The quadrant is the main project workspace. Its project tasks, browser and Lead Agent are scoped to that project. Brain also has a separate workspace for its own tasks, Done entries and notes.

You will also see them written Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, or by position when there are exactly four: Top-left, Top-right, Bottom-left, Bottom-right.

Brain

A separate assistant in a drawer on the right-hand edge, opened from the brain icon in the title bar. Where an agent works inside one quadrant, the Brain works across all of them, and can hand work to individual quadrant agents.

You can have more than one open, named Brain 1, Brain 2 and so on.

Aux terminals

Project terminals for running servers, one-off commands, and optional extra coding agents alongside the Lead Agent. Each quadrant starts with npm run dev, npm run workers and freehand; the + button adds more shells, Claude Code agents, or Codex agents without disturbing the Lead Agent terminal.

The agent gets the main terminal. These three are for everything else that has to be running at the same time.

Boot project

The recommended way to start work in a quadrant. Instead of just opening the agent, it tells the agent to look over your project and start its servers for you.

The alternative, start unbooted, opens the agent and leaves it waiting for instructions.

When you pick it, you will see an odd-looking line appear in the terminal. That is codus talking to the agent, not an error.

Pin

Attaching a project folder to a quadrant, so that quadrant works on that project. An empty quadrant invites you to choose a project folder. Once assigned, the folder's name sits in the quadrant header, with change folder… and unpin in its menu.

A folder can only be pinned to one quadrant at a time.

Status lights

The coloured dot on each tab, telling you what a quadrant needs without switching to it. Four states: Idle, Working, Needs input, Done.

The pulsing red Needs input is the one that matters. It means an agent has stopped and is waiting on you.

Picture-in-picture

Floating a quadrant's browser as a small window over its own pane, so you can watch a page while still typing to the agent underneath. Available per quadrant, or for all of them at once from the title bar.

Tabs

A tab in the title bar is a saved set of four quadrants. Adding one gives you four fresh quadrants, and each tab remembers its own layout.

These are not the browser tabs inside a preview, which are a different thing entirely.

Floor

The support control room for following conversations across products. It can be opened as customer support in the top bar or More, and older controls call it floor. This is separate from the bottom-bar button for asking Codus for help.

Live View

A card that mirrors whatever web page an agent currently has open, so you can watch it browse without touching anything. It shows in the Brain drawer and in some of the specialist views.

Touch up

The skin-smoothing slider in the codus screen recorder, named after the same feature in video-call apps. It softens skin on your face while you record and is baked into the finished edit, not the raw file. See How do I smooth my skin on camera?.

Words that mean something different in codus

These are the ones that catch people out, including experienced developers, because the word already means something else.

Module

This word does two unrelated jobs.

For account access, a module is an area such as SEO, Video, Analyst or Support. Access can come from a paid addition, promotion or grant. A tab may also be hidden in More without losing access.

Inside the desktop app, on a plan canvas, a module is a shape you can file a note or a task under. Nothing to do with money.

Context tells you which. If it is about billing or tabs appearing, it is the first. If it is about a canvas, it is the second.

Plan

Also two jobs.

In the cloud, your plan is what you pay for: Solo, Agency 5, Agency 10, Agency 20+.

In the desktop app, a plan is a document about the work: a canvas of shapes and connections, or a list of tasks or notes. There are three kinds, canvas, tasks and notes, and only canvas plans have the shapes that a note or task can be assigned to.

Worktree

In codus, choosing a project folder assigns that folder to the quadrant. Any folder will do; it does not have to be a Git worktree.

In git, the wider tool codus sits on top of, a worktree is a specific, narrower thing: an extra copy of one project checked out somewhere else. Both meanings appear in the app, occasionally close together. If you are reading a button, assume the loose meaning: a folder.

Token

In codus, a token is a password-like string you paste in to connect an outside service, such as a Vercel or Cloudflare token.

In AI usage, a token can instead mean a unit of text a model processes. That is different from a secret API credential. Usage limits and displays depend on the provider; never paste a credential into chat to check its usage.

Actions

In the Changes panel's tab row, Actions means GitHub Actions, your project's automated build jobs.

Elsewhere, the work your agent has completed is also described as actions. Same word, unrelated things.

Done

The tab holding the running record of everything your agent has finished, one line per piece of work. If you are looking for a history, log or journal, this is it. It is called done.

Ordinary developer words, in plain English

Nothing codus-specific here, but no one is born knowing them.

Agent

The AI that does the work in a quadrant. codus does not have an AI of its own: it runs one you already have, a supported provider such as Claude Code or OpenAI Codex, and gives it a place to work, tools to use, and a record of what it did.

The main one is the Lead Agent. You can add more agents from the Terminals drawer. A Builder focuses on making changes after coordinating which files it owns. A Reviewer focuses on checking the builder's reasoning, running tests and trying to find problems, but still has full access and can fix something when asked. Codus starts both without routine permission pop-ups.

Install and configure the provider you intend to use; Claude Code is not compulsory.

Terminal

The large text panel that fills most of a quadrant. It is where you talk to the agent and where the agent replies. You type at the bottom.

Repo, or repository

A project tracked by Git. Committed versions are recorded in its history; unsaved or uncommitted changes are not automatically recoverable just because the folder is a repository.

You do not need one. codus is happy to open any folder. If the folder is not a repo, the panel that shows your changes simply says so.

Branch

A named line of work inside a project, so you can change things without disturbing the version that already works. It shows as a chip beside the folder name in the quadrant header, and clicking it lets you switch, create, rename or delete.

Seat

A licence for an active computer, with capacity assigned through the account's plan, seats or valid grants. One GitHub account can use multiple computers within its allowance. See What is a seat?.

Task

A job you queue for a quadrant's agent, written in the tasks tab and run from there. A task moves through proposed, pending, running, and then done or cancelled, and can hold smaller subtasks.

Note

A short piece of writing saved against a project so it survives between sessions. The first line becomes its title. Each one is tagged as a note, idea, decision, question, todo or brainstorming.

Issue

A problem raised out of a customer-support conversation, queued against a quadrant so its agent can fix it. This is not a GitHub issue and not a general bug tracker. It only appears if your plan includes the Support pack.

Preview

The web browser built into codus, showing your site beside the terminal so you can watch changes as they happen.

Its name is not consistent yet: the button that opens it says web, its tooltip says test browser, and the tab strip calls it a preview. All the same thing.

Dev server

The program that serves your site on your own machine so the preview has something to show. Until it is running, the preview has nothing to display.

MCP

The section in Settings where you add extra tools for your agents to use. The three letters are never spelled out anywhere, and you do not need them: the section's own description is the useful definition, "give your agents extra tools".

PATH

A list your computer keeps of where to find the programs it can run. When setup tells you to put something "on your PATH", it means making your machine able to find it by name.

This is the step people most often miss when installing Claude Code, and the symptom is codus telling you Claude Code is not installed when you know that you installed it.

WSL

Windows Subsystem for Linux: a Linux environment inside Windows. A tool installed there is not necessarily installed in native Windows or available in PowerShell. Use the setup instructions for the environment your Codus terminal actually runs in.

Provider, model and reasoning

A provider is the coding-agent service or runtime you select. A model is the AI option used within that provider. Reasoning controls a supported model's thinking effort. Availability and names differ between providers; selecting a menu option is not proof that a running terminal has completed the switch.

Skill

Reusable instructions for an agent, often with supporting scripts or references. Your user Skills library is separate from MCP tool servers and saved integration credentials. Installing a skill does not automatically connect the account it describes.

Assets

The library for keeping useful files and generated outputs with a workspace. Brain and quadrants have their own asset views. A shared library location is not a public download link.

Entitlement

The account's permission to use Codus or a module. It can come from a paid plan, a team, a grant or an applicable promotion. An empty subscription list alone does not prove there is no access.

Codus Whisper

Codus's built-in dictation on supported Macs. It turns microphone audio into text using an installed engine and selected local model. It is separate from an agent's own voice feature and third-party dictation apps.

Support brief and answer library

The support brief summarises a product. The answer library contains detailed help pages published for its support agent. Refreshing one does not automatically publish the other or deploy a public documentation website.

DevTools

The inspection panel for a quadrant, titled DevTools with the quadrant's name. Five sections: Changes (files you have edited but not yet saved into git history), Explorer, History, PRs, Actions.

Pull request, or PR

A proposal to merge one branch into another, reviewed before it is accepted. Managed from the PRs panel, which needs your GitHub account connected first.

A note on what you can see

Not every account has every area. Paid access, grants, promotions, platform capabilities and the views pinned in More can all affect what you see. A missing button is not a diagnosis by itself.