Machines and clients
A machine runs the brain. The desktop app, terminal, web, and phone attach to it.
Lanes
One git worktree and branch per task — the unit of parallel work.
Work sessions
Agent chats, terminals, and CLI sessions, all scoped to a lane.
Agents and models
Thirteen provider runtimes, a model chosen per session, credentials you already have.
Tools
What every chat can do: universal tools, ADE’s CLI surfaces, and provider-native extras.
Subagents
Delegate inside one provider, or hand work to a different one.
The rest of the vocabulary
These are areas rather than foundations. You will meet them as you work.Local project state
ADE stores project data in.ade/ inside your repository — the local database, worktrees, artifacts, caches, and machine-specific state. Keep it out of Git unless a page explicitly says a file is safe to share.