Reference
Glossary
Coldtea uses a small vocabulary. These are the terms you will see across the app and docs.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Agent | A CLI coding agent launched in a Coldtea terminal pane. Coldtea hosts the process; the agent still owns its own behavior. |
| Agent team | A saved set of agents launched together, each with a named role, so several agents work the same task in parallel. |
| Annotation | A comment attached to a terminal line, editor selection, or a spot on a browser page. Use it for precise feedback. |
| Artifact | An HTML page an agent publishes from a session, saved in Coldtea with a shareable URL. Agents create them with the artifact tools. |
| Brew | An agent session in Coldtea. A brew can be quick local work or linked to a task. |
| Brief | In production monitoring, the end-of-day recap of what was filed, what ran, and what is blocked. Coldtea can send it to your inbox. |
| Cloud run | A brew that runs on a hosted machine instead of yours, so it proceeds whether or not your desktop is open. Distinct from a Matcha QA run. |
| Composer | The prompt surface for starting or guiding agent work in the active pane. |
| Diff | The actual file changes made in the project or worktree. Review the diff before trusting an agent summary. |
| Embedded editor | Coldtea's in-app code editor surface for reading files, selections, and changes near the terminal. |
| Implementation plan | A stored plan for task-linked work. Plans are immutable versions; the latest one is the current source of truth. |
| Local API | How the desktop app and the agents it launches talk to each other. It runs on your machine only and is not a public integration endpoint. |
| Matcha | The name of Coldtea's testing agent. It runs a user path against a URL or build and reports a verdict. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol. Coldtea uses MCP to expose terminal, task, browser, label, QA, and artifact tools to launched agents. |
| Pane | A visible workspace surface, such as a terminal, editor, task view, QA view, or browser. |
| Project | A local Git repository opened in Coldtea. Most terminals, editors, and worktrees start from a project. |
| Production monitoring | The daily loop that reads a repository and its connected production signals, files the work worth doing, and writes you a brief. |
| Run | One execution of a Matcha QA test. A run has steps and ends in a verdict. |
| Run-as | The identity a Matcha QA run acts as: anonymous, or a saved test user. |
| Run group | A named set of saved tests that share a run-as identity and run together. Listed under Run Groups on the QA home. |
| Saved test | A stored QA scenario, holding its target, description, and run-as identity, ready to run again. Every manual desktop run creates one. |
| Session log | A task-linked note about what happened in an agent session: changes, checks, failures, and remaining work. |
| Share link | A tokenized URL to a finished QA run report, openable by anyone who has the link, without a Coldtea account. |
| Site protection | A Matcha QA setting that lets runs reach a protected deployment, such as a Vercel protection-bypass secret. |
| Tab | A lane of work inside the workspace. Tabs help keep the base project, worktrees, and task sessions apart. |
| Task | The team-facing unit of work. A task can hold the description, state, labels, assignee, plans, logs, and review context. |
| TeaHouse | The Coldtea team boundary for members, teams, task boards, integrations, and shared settings. |
| Test user | A saved sign-in identity a Matcha QA run acts as inside your app, shared across a TeaHouse. |
| Verdict | The result a completed Matcha QA run reports: pass, fail, or warning. A run that never got a fair shot carries no verdict and shows a "couldn't run" reason instead. |
| Worktree | A separate Git working directory tied to the same repository. It separates Git edits, not machine permissions. |
Easy mix-ups
| Do not confuse | Difference |
|---|---|
| Task and brew | A task is the durable record. A brew is the agent session doing work. |
| Pane and tab | A pane is one surface. A tab is a lane that can contain panes. |
| Worktree and sandbox | A worktree isolates Git checkout state. It does not isolate credentials, network, or local services. |
| GitHub integration and local Git | The integration supports Coldtea workflows. Your terminal still uses normal Git credentials and remotes. |
| TeaHouse access and provider access | TeaHouse membership controls Coldtea surfaces. GitHub, Linear, and other providers still enforce their own permissions. |
Next: concepts or teams and security.