Referencecross-cutting-referenceFour sections, one avoid-list
Glossary
The shared definition source for every term the guide introduces. Don’t read it front to back — come back when a word turns up that you half-recognize.
filters as you type
One plain line per term, plus where it is properly explained. Don't read this front to back. Come back to it when a word turns up that you half-recognize.
This exists because of a rule the guide follows throughout: terms are explained on first use, never avoided. A guide that dodges the vocabulary leaves you unable to read anyone else's documentation. This file is what makes that rule enforceable instead of a matter of each writer's judgment.
Adding to it is not optional. Anything the guide introduces gets a line here, in the pass that introduces it.
1Using the tools
| Term | In one line | Explained in |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | The app you type into, and the model behind it. Made by Anthropic | Intro to AI |
| LLM | Large language model. The software behind Claude: it writes a reply one word at a time, predicting what comes next from everything it was trained on | Intro to AI |
| Model | Software trained on a lot of text until it became skilled at continuing text sensibly | Intro to AI |
| Chat / conversation | One continuous exchange. Start a new one and it knows nothing about the last | Intro to AI |
| Context | Everything the model can currently see. This conversation, plus anything loaded. Not in context, doesn't exist | Intro to AI |
| Prompt | What you type. An instruction, not a search query: the definition the rest of the guide leans on hardest. The constraints that make one work (the request plus everything attached to it that rules something out) are taught in Hooks that don't sound like AI wrote them | Intro to AI |
| Brief | What a brand is commissioning: the job, the deliverables, the terms. A document that arrives from a client, not something you write for Claude | Rate card / pricing calculator, which prices from one |
| Memory | Opt-in. A best-effort synthesis carried between chats. Useful; never where guardrails live | Intro to AI |
| Incognito chat | A chat saved to neither memory nor history | Intro to AI |
| Usage limits | Caps on how much you can do in a period. Apply on every plan, free included. They reset | Intro to AI |
| Extended thinking | The model working longer on a harder problem before answering | Intro to AI |
2Organizing work
| Term | In one line | Explained in |
|---|---|---|
| Project | A self-contained workspace with its own chats and its own knowledge base. One per client | Setting up a Project for your brand |
| Knowledge base | The files inside a project that every chat in it can see. The shared part | Setting up a Project for your brand |
| Project instructions | Standing behavioral rules applied to every chat in one project. Not the same as the knowledge base | Putting the intake somewhere it gets used |
| Skill | The way you want one kind of job done, written once; Claude brings it in when the work matches. No plan gate | What a Skill is |
| Connector | Lets Claude reach into an app you already use, instead of you copy-pasting between windows | Connect three things, then stop |
| Plugin | A bundle of skills and connectors installed together. Paid plans only | Connect three things, then stop |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol. The plumbing behind custom connectors. You almost certainly don't need it | Connect three things, then stop |
| Cowork | The agentic surface. Describe an outcome, walk away, come back to finished work. Paid plans only | Which jobs are worth handing off, and what that costs |
| Agentic | Something acting on your behalf across several steps, rather than answering one message | Chat or hand-off: telling the two kinds of work apart |
| Hand-off | This guide's word for agentic work: you describe the finished thing, the tool holds the loop | Chat or hand-off: telling the two kinds of work apart |
3The craft
| Term | In one line | Explained in |
|---|---|---|
| UGC | User-generated content. Content made by a creator that a brand pays for and uses as its own | UGC and influencing are different jobs |
| Content | What a creator makes for a brand to run as its own: video and photography. Never the product, which is the physical item the content is about | UGC Craft Basics, where UGC is defined |
| Niche | The specific thing you're known for. Noticed from what you already use, not invented | Ten products, one sitting, one sentence |
| Content pillar | A recurring format of post you can make repeatedly without a new idea each time. Not a topic | Content pillars and posting cadence |
| Spec work | Something you made unpaid and uncommissioned, to show what you can do. Fine to show; must be labeled | Why a portfolio stops people, and what removes the blockage |
| Hook | The opening line. The thing that decides whether the rest is watched | Hooks that don't sound like AI wrote them |
| Beat | A job a piece has to do, not a unit of time. Adjacent beats can share a shot | What to avoid using AI on, where a beat is defined |
| Take | One recorded attempt. The word film crews use for it | Your Second Unit, where takes are named |
| Deliverable | The thing the brand is actually buying, defined in the contract rather than assumed | Scoping a job before you quote it |
| Rate card | What you charge, written down before someone asks | Rate card / pricing calculator |
| Usage rights | What a brand may do with your work, for how long, and where. Priced separately from making it | What gets priced on top of the base rate |
| Perpetuity | A rights grant with no end date. Means forever; price it that way or negotiate it out | Rate card / pricing calculator |
| Exclusivity | Agreeing not to work with a client's competitors for a period. A restriction on your business, priced as one | Rate card / pricing calculator |
| Kill fee | What you're owed if a client cancels after you've started. Agreed in advance, not on the day | Getting paid, and the money after the money |
| Whitelisting | A brand running paid ads that appear to come from your own account. Priced separately, always | Contract template |
| Pickup | A small re-shoot after the main session, to fix or add one specific thing | Voice and avatar tools: the category, and how to judge it |
| Prosody | The rhythm, stress and pitch movement of a spoken sentence. Where synthetic speech gives itself away first | Voice and avatar tools: the category, and how to judge it |
| The tell | The signs a piece was machine-written. Stacked adjectives, even stress, symmetry nobody speaks in. Says who wrote a line, never whether it is true | Hooks that don't sound like AI wrote them, where the tell is named |
4Keeping it honest
| Term | In one line | Explained in |
|---|---|---|
| Intake / the Brand Voice and Rules Document | The brand voice and guardrails form. One per client. The source of what a brand will and won't say | Filling in the Brand Voice and Rules Document |
| Experience file | Your own record of what you actually did with the product. Every claim traces back to it | The experience file, and why an empty one stops a script |
| Barred claim | Something a client is legally or contractually forbidden from saying. A hard constraint, not a style note | Checking claims before they go out |
| Off-limits list | Words and phrases a client bans. Matched literally. Also what stops output sounding like everyone else's | Checking claims before they go out |
| Guardrail | Any recorded rule that constrains output. Lives in a file, never only in a conversation | Guardrails: the list the checker reads |
| Provenance | The honest record of how something was made: what generated it, when, from what, and what a human changed | The habit: what you show, and what you keep so you can |
| Unsupported | A claim with no source behind it. Not the same as wrong: you don't know it's wrong, you know it isn't sourced | Checking claims before they go out |
| BLOCKED / UNSUPPORTED / FLAGGED | The Claim Checker's three findings, from the claim-guard Skill: a barred claim; a claim with no source; something to fix or accept deliberately | Checking claims before they go out |
| Disclosure | Telling the audience a piece is paid or gifted. Requirements change. Confirm, never assume | Disclosure |
5Terms this guide deliberately avoids
Not because they're too hard. Because they're imprecise, and precision is the point.
| Not used | Used instead | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "AI-powered" | Name what it does | Says nothing. Every tool is AI-powered now |
| "Prompt engineering" | Writing a prompt | Makes an ordinary skill sound like a specialism |
| "Automate" | Hand off, or batch | Implies nobody is watching. Somebody should be |