A little Nookins vocabulary
Meet the helpers, their workspaces, and the illustrated world around them.
Documentation for Nookins 0.42.1-alpha.1 · Public alpha
Nookins and a Nookin
Nookins is the platform. A Nookin is an individual configured AI helper, with a name, role, identity, memory, workspace, and permissions. You choose its name; examples and brand characters do not replace your existing names.
A nook and Nookra
A nook is our friendly metaphor for a helper's own workspace. Technical settings still use their exact configuration names.
Nookra is the imagined home of the illustrated Nookins: a cozy village of small workspaces. It is brand lore, not a cloud region, shared runtime, or separate service. The actual software runs in the environment you operate.
Records, memory, and files
Agent Records are governed structured information, including drafts, evidence, and receipts. Memory helps recall context. Conversation history records what was said. Files are the editable workspace; outputs are produced artifacts. These have different lifecycles and access rules.
An owner statement, verified external information, and a Nookin inference are not interchangeable. Inferences do not silently become confirmed facts or permissions.
Attention and skills
Sentinel is the current technical name for scoped conversation attention, learning, and participation. Those are separate choices; increased attention does not itself grant tools or authorize external effects. Keep it disabled for the first local trial.
Skills provide instructions and procedures. Add-ons supply optional capabilities under configured permissions. Reading a skill does not install or authorize its tools.
Configuration vocabulary
An owner is a trusted person configured for the installation. A channel account is a messaging connection such as one Telegram bot or WhatsApp account. A route connects an exact conversation to a Nookin with activation and sender rules. An agent link is a directed grant to ask another agent or inspect allowed history; it does not borrow that agent's authority.
A feature is built into Nookins. An extension package contains optional code, skills or reference material. An add-on instance configures an independently attachable capability from that package. An MCP server exposes tools through a configured transport. A hook observes events in a restricted WASI runtime; an automation starts bounded work in response to an eligible event. A schedule starts work at an explicit time.
Use configuration, extensions and integrations to connect these concepts to their exact files. Friendly language does not change command names, YAML keys or permissions.