# Which terms does Provely use?

> One-sentence definitions of the Provely terms: intent, action, acknowledgement, outcome, completion, correlation, idempotency, evidence level, verdict.

Canonical: https://provely.sh/glossary  
Last reviewed: 2026-09-05  

**Provely uses one approved word for one meaning. This glossary defines each term in one sentence and links to the page that explains it.**

| Term | Definition |
| --- | --- |
| [Intent](/glossary/intent) | What the user asked for, stated before any action. |
| [Action](/glossary/action) | What the agent attempted against the provider. |
| [Acknowledgement](/glossary/acknowledgement) | What the provider returned at once, such as HTTP 200 and an object. |
| [Outcome](/glossary/outcome) | The observable resulting state in the real system. |
| [Completion](/glossary/completion) | The outcome satisfies the completion contract. |
| [Completion contract](/glossary/completion-contract) | A machine-readable, versioned, hashable definition of done for one operation. |
| [Completion level](/glossary/completion-level) | One named promise of a service, proven by one contract. |
| [Correlation](/glossary/correlation) | The binding of evidence to the exact operation through keys such as a resource id. |
| [Idempotency](/glossary/idempotency) | The property that a retried request creates no second side effect. |
| [Evidence level](/glossary/evidence-level) | The rank of a piece of evidence by its independence from the action path, E0 to E5. |
| [Verdict](/glossary/verdict) | The result of one verification attempt: VERIFIED, PENDING, CONTRADICTED, FAILED, or UNVERIFIABLE. |
| [PENDING](/glossary/pending) | The verdict while an operation can still make progress. |
| [UNVERIFIABLE](/glossary/unverifiable) | The verdict when the evidence never became sufficient. |
| [CONTRADICTED](/glossary/contradicted) | The verdict when the evidence shows a different outcome than the intent. |
| [False VERIFIED](/glossary/false-verified) | A VERIFIED verdict for an outcome that did not happen. The highest-severity defect. |
| [Evidence receipt](/glossary/receipt) | A signed, machine-readable record of what was verified and how. |
| [Service verification skill](/glossary/skill) | A signed package of contracts, lifecycles, evidence channels, and tests for one provider. |
| [Conformance](/glossary/conformance) | The mandatory test matrix a skill must pass before certification. |
| [Intent compilation](/glossary/intent-compilation) | The step that turns a task in natural language into a completion contract. |
| [Intent fidelity](/glossary/intent-fidelity) | The agreement between what the user asked for and what the contract checks. |
| [REQUIRES_REVIEW](/glossary/requires-review) | The mark on a part of a task that no contract can check. |
| [Drift](/glossary/drift) | A change in a provider schema, docs, or behaviour that can change a contract. |

## Read next

- [Read how Provely works](https://provely.sh/how-it-works)
- [Read what a completion contract contains](https://provely.sh/contracts)