Glossary

Terms used in these docs, in the CLI and on the site, in alphabetical order.

Terms#

ACP (Agent Client Protocol): an open protocol for talking to coding agents. LIVE_ACP=1 runs any agent that speaks it with structured capture and web approvals. See Agents.

Admin: a user who can see the admin pages and change users' limits. On a self-hosted server it is a database flag. See Self-hosting.

agents.json: ~/.liveshortly/agents.json, the file where you list extra agents for live daemon, with type_comments and acp options. See Starting sessions from the web.

Allow / Deny / Always allow for this session: the three answers to a permission request. Always allow stops asking for that command for the rest of the session.

Approval / permission request: an agent asking to run a tool, held until someone answers. See Approvals.

Approvals offline: what you see when a gated tool is denied because the local live process could not answer. Approvals fail closed.

Capture: how live records a session: hooks, a rollout file, ACP, or terminal recording.

Comment / viewer message: a message someone watching sends to the session. It is shown to everyone watching and delivered once to the agent.

Commenter: an invited person who can watch, send messages and answer approvals from live join. Shown as Comment in the share sheet.

Daemon: live daemon, a process that lets you start sessions on your machine from the web, or, with --server, from the PocketAI app.

Device flow: how live login signs in: the CLI shows a code, you approve it on the /device page in your browser.

Digest: the summary of a source session that a fork starts with. Built from the event log, without an AI model.

Event: one item in a session: a prompt, a reply, a tool call, a file change, terminal output, a viewer message or an approval. Events are numbered in order (seq).

Fails closed: when approvals can't be reached or nobody answers, the tool is denied, not allowed.

Feed: the public list of published sessions at /feed.

Fork: a new session, owned by you, that continues an existing one. The original is unchanged.

Handle: the 8-character short form of a session id that live ls prints. Also your @name on the site.

Handoff code: a 7-day code (ho_...) that lets someone fork a session from a fixed point.

Harness: an agent CLI that live knows how to capture, such as Claude Code or Codex. The support matrix lists them.

Hook capture: how Claude Code, Antigravity and Gemini CLI are recorded, through the agent's own lifecycle hooks. Gives structured events.

Host: a machine running live daemon that is connected to your account. live hosts lists them.

host.json: ~/.liveshortly/host.json, which tells the CLI which server to use.

Link role: what people who open a session by its link can do: Watch, or Watch and comment.

Live: a session whose agent is still running. Shown with a live badge.

New session: the page on the site that starts an agent on one of your hosts.

Open: the visibility level that lets anyone watch without signing in.

Prior context: the source session's history shown above a fork's own events.

Private: the default visibility: only you and people you invite.

Public: the visibility level for any signed-in person with the link; the session can appear on the feed.

Publish: list a session in the public feed. See Publishing.

Redaction: replacing home paths, emails and *.local hostnames for everyone except the owner.

Replay: an ended session, played back from its events at the same link.

Rollout file: the file Codex writes its own session to. live reads it to capture Codex.

Self-hosting: running your own LiveShortly server. See Self-hosting.

Session: one run of an agent started with live. It is live while the agent runs and ended afterwards, when it becomes a replay.

Share sheet: the Share panel on a session page, where you set visibility, the link role, invites and publishing.

Sidecar: the part of live that runs next to the agent, sends events to the server and relays approvals and messages.

Skip permission prompts: the New session option that runs a web-started agent without approvals.

Story: the readable write-up of a session at /story/<id>.

Terminal capture (PTY): how other commands are recorded, by reading what they print to the terminal.

tmux popup: the approval prompt shown over the agent in your terminal when tmux is installed.

Typing indicator: the "… is typing" line under the message box. Not saved.

Viewer: an invited person who can watch only. Shown as Watch in the share sheet.

Visibility: who can open a session: private, anyone with the link, public, or open. See Sharing & visibility.