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Glossary

Every term the docs use, in one alphabetical list. Product concepts and developer vocabulary sit together on purpose: a publicId and a process turn up in the same integration. Each entry is a one- or two-sentence definition and a link to the page that covers it in full.

Agent​

A versioned AI configuration — instructions, a model, tools, budgets and an approval policy — that runs on its own as its own loop. An agent can do nothing but talk until you give it tools. See Agents and Barry.

API key​

An organization-scoped credential, prefixed hbk_, that authenticates calls to the GraphQL API. It carries an explicit permission set chosen at creation, has no expiry, and is shown only once. A key can never manage keys or perform Owner/Admin-only operations. See Authentication.

Availability​

Whether a member is available to work right now, and which processes they are accepting work from. Team routing consults it when it decides who a task goes to. See Teams and availability.

Barry​

The AI copilot embedded in the app. It reads your organization and drafts processes, workflows, forms, teams and agents for you, and it debugs runs. Its writes need your approval; it never holds your credentials. See Agents and Barry.

DCR (Dynamic Client Registration)​

The OAuth mechanism by which an MCP client registers itself with Honeybase automatically, without a human first creating client credentials, so a fresh AI client can begin the sign-in flow on its own. See the MCP guide.

Endpoint​

A kind of process you call over HTTP and get an answer back from: its released workflow ends on a Response node, which decides the body and status code the caller receives. See Processes, workflows and runs.

Form​

A questionnaire from your organization's form library, attachable to a task or shareable as a public link. Its answers land in the task's data. See Tasks and forms.

Integration​

A saved connection to an external system — a database, Slack, WhatsApp, email, Google Sheets, any HTTP API, or an LLM provider. Nodes reference the connection; its secrets live in the secret store, never in the workflow. See Integrations.

JsonString​

A GraphQL scalar for fields that hold arbitrary JSON — task metadata, integration configurations, form definitions. It is transported as a string containing JSON, not as a JSON object, so you escape it on the way in and parse it on the way out. See Conventions.

MCP (Model Context Protocol)​

The open protocol that lets an AI client drive Honeybase directly — listing processes, reading runs, creating tasks — as a set of tools, with OAuth handling sign-in. See the MCP guide.

Node​

One step in a workflow: a trigger, a branch, a loop, an API call, a database read, a task, an AI call. Each node's output is available to the nodes downstream of it, addressed by node name. See Processes, workflows and runs.

OAuth scopes​

The units of access an MCP or OAuth client requests and the user consents to during sign-in, bounding what that client may then do on the user's behalf. See the MCP guide.

Permission flags​

The boolean grants that make up an API key's permission set — canManageTasks, canManageSecrets, canManageReleases and the rest. Each operation names the flag it requires; a call missing it returns a PERMISSION_DENIED error rather than failing at the HTTP level. See Authentication and Conventions.

Process​

The container for one automation and everything about it: its workflows, its run history, its settings, and the tasks it creates. Most processes are ordinary; an endpoint and an agent tool are the two variants. See Processes, workflows and runs.

publicId​

An opaque UUID string carried by most top-level entities alongside their numeric Long id. It is safe to put in URLs and hand to third parties, and by-id getters accept it in place of the numeric id. See Conventions.

Release / version​

Releasing a workflow freezes it under a major.minor version number (e.g. 1.0) that can never be edited afterwards. Automated triggers fire only from a process's current release, and each run points at the exact version that produced it. See Processes, workflows and runs.

Run​

One execution of a released workflow, from a trigger to its last step. It records, per node, the input received, the result produced, any error, and anything the step logged, and it ends in a phase such as Complete, Partial or Failed. See Processes, workflows and runs.

Schedule​

A recurring window that writes a member's availability automatically at its start and end — automation over availability rather than a calendar. See Schedules.

Secret​

A credential — a database password, a provider key — kept in a dedicated secret store when you create an integration. Workflow nodes reference the connection, not the secret, and reading a connection back through the API returns its configuration with secret values masked. See Integrations.

Task​

A work item assigned to a person (directly or via a team), with a due date, a priority, an optional form and an audit trail. Writes made through the API are attributed to the key by name in that trail. See Tasks and forms.

Team​

A named group of members. A workflow can assign work to the team rather than to a named person, and routing then consults availability. See Teams and availability.

Trigger​

The first node of a workflow — a webhook, a schedule, an inbound message, a form submission, a task update. A workflow with no trigger cannot run, and automated triggers fire only from the current release of an unpaused process. See Processes, workflows and runs.

Workflow​

A graph of nodes inside a process — either the single editable draft or a released, frozen version. Released workflows never change, which is what makes a run from last month explainable by a definition that still exists. See Processes, workflows and runs.