Glossary
Key terms used throughout the Ejentum documentation. For the theory behind these concepts, see The Method. For practical usage, see the API Reference.
API Response Components
Negative Gate The failure pattern the agent must avoid. A specific, named cognitive error that the ability is designed to prevent. Example: "Treats the first visible symptom as the root cause without tracing the causal chain deeper."
Target Pattern What correct reasoning looks like for this task type. A concrete description of the reasoning behavior the scaffold is designed to produce.
Reasoning Topology
The execution structure of the ability. Defines the steps, decision gates, loops, and exit conditions the agent should follow. Example: S1:identify → S2:trace → G1{found?} --yes→ OUT --no→ S2[LOOP]
Falsification Test A verification criterion the agent checks its output against. If the output fails this test, the reasoning procedure was not followed correctly. Example: "If the proposed fix addresses a surface symptom without tracing the causal chain, root cause analysis was skipped."
Cognitive Payload The combined set of suppression vectors, amplification vectors, cognitive style, and reasoning elasticity delivered with each ability.
Cognitive Payload Fields
Suppression Vectors
Failure modes to actively block during generation. These are specific reasoning shortcuts that the ability is designed to prevent. Examples: symptom_treatment_bias, surface_level_stop, optimism_bias, correlation_as_causation. In our benchmarks, suppression signals produce larger behavioral improvements than amplification alone. The effect is multiplicative: each named failure mode eliminates an entire branch of incorrect outputs. Self-monitoring improved +132% primarily through suppression, not amplification.
Amplification Vectors Reasoning patterns to prioritize during generation. These signals pull the model's output toward specific cognitive operations.
Cognitive Style A single semantic anchor that sets the reasoning methodology for the entire generation. Examples: root cause isolation, bayesian inference, counterfactual simulation.
Reasoning Elasticity Controls how tightly the agent must converge on a specific answer versus how freely it can explore. Two components:
- Coherence target: What the output should converge toward (e.g., calibrated probability, audit completeness)
- Expansion factor: How much creative latitude is allowed (conservative, adaptive, high variance, max entropy)
Modes
Single Mode. Ki (single ability) Returns one ability per call. one human-like engineered cognitive operation, structured and optimized for agentic inference. The highest-scoring scaffold for the given query. Best for focused, single-domain tasks.
Multi Mode. Haki (multi ability) Returns four synergized abilities per call. four cognitive operations composed into a single compound scaffold with merged suppression and amplification vectors. The four roles:
- Primary: Sets the reasoning direction
- Dependency: Grounds the primary in prerequisites
- Amplifier: Deepens the analysis
- Alternative: Challenges the conclusion
Reasoning Dimensions
Causal Addresses direction-of-causation errors. Prevents the agent from treating correlation as causation.
Temporal Addresses sequence and duration errors. Prevents the agent from confusing past and future or confabulating timelines.
Spatial Addresses boundary and topology errors. Prevents the agent from violating physical or structural constraints.
Simulation Addresses counterfactual and consequence modeling errors. Prevents the agent from ignoring downstream effects.
Abstraction Addresses category and generalization errors. Prevents the agent from conflating metaphor with mechanism.
Metacognition Addresses self-awareness failures. Prevents the agent from continuing to reason incorrectly without recognizing its own degradation.
Other Terms
RA2R (Reasoning Ability-Augmented Retrieval) The core methodology. Unlike RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) which retrieves information, RA2R retrieves reasoning abilities. The agent receives structured cognitive scaffolds that govern HOW it thinks, not WHAT it knows.
Cognitive Scaffold The complete reasoning structure delivered per ability. Includes negative gate, reasoning procedure, topology, target pattern, suppression/amplification vectors, and falsification test.
Compound Suppression In multi-ability mode, suppression vectors from all four abilities are merged into a single set. This catches failure modes that any individual ability would miss.
Ability A single engineered cognitive operation in the 311-ability catalog. Each ability is a 20-field protocol including suppression vectors, reasoning topology, falsification test, and synergy edges. See Concepts for the full anatomy.