The Platform PM

Glossary and sources

Field Guide

AI coding agents: writing, reviewing and shipping code

10

Glossary and sources

7 min read · Chapter 10 of 10

Words that mean something else here

TermWhat you'd assumeWhat it means here
AgentOne thingAutocomplete, an editor agent, a terminal agent or a background agent, each with different permissions and risks
HarnessA test harnessThe code around the model: tools, context, permissions and the loop. Benchmarks score a model and a harness together
MemoryThe agent learnsFiles loaded at the start of a session; nothing persists unless it's written to a file
RulesPolicyText the model reads and may ignore; permissions and branch protection are the policy
CheckpointA rollbackUndo for file edits only, not for databases or deployments
SandboxIsolatedAnything from an operating-system sandbox on a laptop to a virtual machine in a vendor's cloud
VerifiedChecked by peopleSWE-bench Verified was screened by people in 2024 and later found flawed; a "Verified" commit on GitHub is signed, not reviewed
CreditA fixed unit$0.01 of tokens at GitHub, $0.04 of overage at Kiro, no fixed dollar value on OpenAI's public page
IndemnityCover for what the agent doesDefence against third-party IP claims on its output
AuthorWhoever wrote itA human for copyright; whoever originated the change for PCI; anything an agent sets in git
DORAOne thingGoogle's software-delivery research program, or the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act; both concern change management

What surprised me

Placeholders in your voice, drafted from the research and the earlier guides. Rewrite each with your own moment.

The seat. In spend management a card limit capped what one employee could spend. Here a $19 seat buys a couple of hours of agent time, and everything after that is metered at the lab's price.

The approval. In procure to pay the approver checks an invoice against an order. Here the pull request approval is the only hard gate, and many agent pull requests that fail are never really read.

The supplier. In telco, carriers sold capacity to resellers they competed with. Here a lab can withdraw its models from a rival's coding editor with about 75 days' notice.

Undo. In observability, rolling back a deploy felt like the safety net. An agent's checkpoint undoes file edits, and a deleted database stays deleted.

The issue tracker. In cloud security I thought of permissions as the attack surface. Here a GitHub issue title was enough to get a malicious release published.

Sources

Undated entries were read on October 9, 2026; "search result" means seen only as a search snippet or summary. Company figures are self-reported unless they come from a filing or a regulator, and vendor research measures the vendor's own products or customers.

Agent vendors and labs: documentation, pricing and terms

Company disclosures

Market, deals and pricing changes (press)

Surveys of developers and buyers

Research, benchmarks and outcomes

Law, regulators and standards

Incidents, attacks and supply chain

Field Guides are learning notes, not legal or compliance advice. Rules and fees change; check the cited primary sources before you act on anything here.