Back Matter
Index
A term index over the chapters and the appendix. A curated concept entry leads with the paragraph that defines it and the paragraphs that exemplify it; a plain term entry links the pages where it appears, capped so the index leads with the significant sites.
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A
- A property test models the outputdefinition of: Ch. 25
- ADA / document accessibility Ch. 15, Ch. 26, Toward a Theory of MAGE, Appendix A - 6
- Adapter Ch. 19, Ch. 28, Appendix B - 2
- Agentdefinition of: Ch. 6
- Agent-orchestration modeldefinition of: Ch. 17
- agentic harness The Book's Language, Ch. 4, Ch. 6
- Aristotle (essential vs. accidental properties — Metaphysics / Posterior Analytics) Implications for Software Engineering
- Audit Ch. 11, Ch. 20, Ch. 29, List of Figures and Tables
- Audits into lintsdefinition of: Ch. 24
B
- ban-lint Ch. 2, Ch. 6, Appendix A - 1, Appendix A - 2
- Bill of materialsdefinition of: Ch. 15
- Blast radius Ch. 8, Ch. 16, Appendix A - 6, Appendix B - 14
- Bottom-up inductiondefinition of: Ch. 20
- Bounded model checkingdefinition of: Ch. 14
- Boy-scout rule Appendix D - 2
- Brownfield migrationdefinition of: Ch. 20
- Bun (runtime port example) Ch. 1, Ch. 8, Ch. 27, Toward a Theory of MAGE
C
- canonical walker Appendix B - 24, Appendix C
- caused-by provenance Appendix C
- census Appendix A - 3, Appendix A - 6, Ch. 8, Ch. 11
- Characterization / golden test Ch. 22, Appendix B - 17, Appendix C
- Cherry-pick Appendix A - 6, Appendix B - 8, Appendix B - 12
- Churndefinition of: Preface
- Circuit breaker Ch. 21
- Claude Code, OpenCode The Book's Language, Ch. 6
- Code smelldefinition of: Ch. 20
- Codemod Appendix C
- Component-zone modeldefinition of: Ch. 15
- Compounding failure probabilitydefinition of: Ch. 22
- conditioning the probability distribution Ch. 3
- Conditioning the searchdefinition of: Ch. 23
- Constraint Ch. 8, Appendix A - 7, The MAGE Method at a Glance, The Book's Language
- Constraint (prevents drift)definition of: Ch. 8
- Constraint-first / defense-in-depth Appendix B - 3
- Constraints and sensorsdefinition of: Ch. 8
- context window / compaction The Book's Language, Preface, Ch. 1, Ch. 4
- Control-substrate dependencydefinition of: Ch. 16
- coverage over model nodes Ch. 12, Ch. 17
- Coverage-to-model mappingdefinition of: Ch. 17
- cron-alerts gate Appendix A - 4, Appendix B - 7, Appendix B - 8, Appendix C
D
- Data-flow diagramdefinition of: Ch. 13
- DDT Ch. 10, Appendix C
- Definition of Done (DoD) Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 20, Ch. 28
- Demoable vs. productizabledefinition of: Ch. 23
- Deployment-topology modeldefinition of: Ch. 16
- Derivation directiondefinition of: Ch. 12
- Derive and joindefinition of: Ch. 12
- Deterministic vs. judgment splitdefinition of: Ch. 9
- Development view List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 12, Ch. 14, Ch. 15
- Digital twindefinition of: Ch. 18
- Dispatch Ch. 29, Appendix C, Preface, List of Figures and Tables
- Diátaxis Ch. 21, Ch. 22, Appendix E - 1
- Diátaxis project Ch. 21
- Drift Ch. 7, Ch. 12, Ch. 19, Appendix A - 2
- drift gate Ch. 12, The Book's Language, Preface, Ch. 6
- drift-parity gates Ch. 8
E
- Engineeringdefinition of: Ch. 6
- engineering environment The Book's Language, Preface, Ch. 4, Ch. 6
- Epic Ch. 7, Ch. 10, Ch. 12, Ch. 13
- Epoch / fencing Ch. 9
- Ex-ante governancedefinition of: Ch. 8
- Ex-post governancedefinition of: Ch. 8
- Executable source-of-truthdefinition of: Ch. 12
- Explicit state machine (FSM) Ch. 29
- Explicitness is essentialdefinition of: Ch. 24
F
- Failure mode and effects analysisdefinition of: Ch. 9
- Fault / failure injection Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 7
- fitness function (correctness definition) Ch. 20
- Fixture Ch. 5, Ch. 8
- Flake Appendix B - 5
- flock / semaphore Appendix A - 5, Ch. 14, Ch. 16, Ch. 17
- Formal invariant verificationdefinition of: Ch. 14
- foundation model / model tier The Book's Language, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 6
- Fuzzing Ch. 25, Ch. 24, Ch. 27, Implications for Software Engineering
G
- Gate Ch. 12, Appendix A - 1, Appendix A - 2, Appendix A - 4
- Gating Appendix A - 5, Ch. 5, Ch. 7, Ch. 16
- Generative validationdefinition of: Ch. 25
- Governance as design patternsdefinition of: Conclusion
- Governance conversiondefinition of: Ch. 8
- Governance mechanismdefinition of: Ch. 8
- Governance packagedefinition of: Ch. 8
- Governance target — agentdefinition of: Appendix C
- Governance target — models-bridgedefinition of: Appendix C
- Governance target — productdefinition of: Appendix C
- Governance-centricdefinition of: Ch. 24
- Greenfielddefinition of: Ch. 20
H
- Heartbeat Appendix A - 4, Appendix A, Appendix B - 3, Appendix C
- Hook (hard mechanism)definition of: Ch. 6
I
- Injection pointdefinition of: Ch. 6examples of: Ch. 7
- injection point (where a mechanism attaches) The Book's Language, Ch. 6
- Invariantdefinition of: Ch. 12
- invariant / policy over a model Ch. 14, Ch. 16, Ch. 17, Ch. 25
- Invariant-DAG execution policydefinition of: Ch. 16
J
- jidoka (stop the line) Ch. 5, Ch. 8
- join key Ch. 17, Ch. 11, Ch. 12, Ch. 13
- Journey task-closuredefinition of: Ch. 17
- Journey-criticality test placementdefinition of: Ch. 17
- Judgment into infrastructuredefinition of: Ch. 24
- Judgment is the scarce resourcedefinition of: Conclusionexamples of: Ch. 24
K
L
- lexicon Ch. 21, Ch. 22, Appendix E - 1
- Lifecycledefinition of: Ch. 9
- Lintdefinition of: Ch. 20
- Lint, cover, inducedefinition of: Ch. 20
- lint-cover-induce Ch. 20
- Liveness propertydefinition of: Ch. 14
- Lock ordering Ch. 14
- Logical view List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14
- Loop engineeringdefinition of: Ch. 3examples of: Ch. 3
M
- Make a lint blockingdefinition of: Ch. 20
- make-lint-blocking Ch. 20
- Map and territorydefinition of: Ch. 7
- Marker interface / attribute Ch. 23, Appendix A, Appendix A - 1, Appendix B - 2
- Measure one level deeperdefinition of: Ch. 10
- Measure one level deeper (Ousterhout) Ch. 10, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 25
- Mediator registrydefinition of: Ch. 14
- merge-train Appendix C, Ch. 6, Ch. 24, Ch. 27
- meta-sync Appendix A - 2, Appendix B - 19, Appendix B - 23, Appendix C
- Mirror vs. specdefinition of: Ch. 7
- Modeldefinition of: Ch. 6
- model (as map / cheaper approximation) Preface, Ch. 3, Ch. 7, Ch. 10
- Model as mapdefinition of: Ch. 7examples of: Ch. 7 Ch. 12
- Model driftdefinition of: Ch. 12examples of: Ch. 7
- Model only where a failure livesdefinition of: Ch. 16
- Model-from-codedefinition of: Ch. 12
- Model-to-codedefinition of: Ch. 12
- Models are the universal languagedefinition of: Preface
- Models join, they do not repeatdefinition of: Ch. 17
- models-bridge Appendix C, Ch. 3, Ch. 7, Ch. 10
- mutator stamp Ch. 29
N
- Node coveragedefinition of: Ch. 17
O
- Observabilitydefinition of: Ch. 8examples of: Ch. 8
- One-shot scriptingdefinition of: Ch. 1
- Optionality is poisondefinition of: Ch. 24
- Oracle Ch. 25, Implications for Software Engineering, Ch. 7, Ch. 10
- orchestrator Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 6, Ch. 7
- orthogonal (complementary) models Appendix E - 1, Ch. 21
P
- Performance-and-cost modeldefinition of: Ch. 16
- Petri nets (Murata survey) Ch. 18
- Physical view List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 12, Ch. 15, Ch. 16
- Picture vs. modeldefinition of: Ch. 1examples of: Ch. 1
- poka-yoke (mistake-proofing) Ch. 5, Ch. 8
- pre-canned brief Ch. 9
- Probabilistic reasoning machinedefinition of: Ch. 3
- Process view List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 7, Ch. 12, Ch. 13
- Producer-dialect corpusdefinition of: Ch. 25
- Property-based test Ch. 25, Implications for Software Engineering
- Protocols and TLA+definition of: Ch. 17
Q
R
- reasoning steps / chain of thought Ch. 22
- Refactoring is freedefinition of: Ch. 24
- Reference classdefinition of: Ch. 23
- reference class (imposed by the model) Ch. 23
- reflection-facet Appendix A - 7, Ch. 19, Ch. 21, Appendix B - 2
- repair vocabulary Appendix C, Appendix B - 29
- Rollback Appendix B - 3
- Rolls-Royce, Boeing (high-assurance modeling) Ch. 7
- Root-cause analysis (RCA) Ch. 6, Implications for Software Engineering
- Rubricdefinition of: Ch. 9
- Rule-metadata registrydefinition of: Ch. 15
- Runbookdefinition of: Ch. 9
- runbook / playbook Ch. 9, Appendix A - 4, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 6
- Russell and Norvig (perceive-and-act agent) Ch. 6
S
- Safety propertydefinition of: Ch. 14
- Scenarios view List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 12, Ch. 17
- search space (narrowing / conditioning) Ch. 23
- SELC — the software engineering life cycledefinition of: Ch. 5
- Self-communicatedefinition of: Ch. 21
- self-communicate (skill) Ch. 21, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 22, Appendix E - 1
- Self-governancedefinition of: Ch. 21
- self-governance (skill) Ch. 21, Appendix A - 6, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 19
- Self-operatedefinition of: Ch. 21
- self-operate (skill) Ch. 21, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 22, Appendix A - 4
- Semantic gap Ch. 7, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 11
- Sensor Ch. 8, The Book's Language, Preface, List of Figures and Tables
- Sensor (detects drift)definition of: Ch. 8
- sentinel Appendix C
- Service-oriented architecture (SOA) Ch. 13
- Shift-left Appendix B - 4
- Sidecar Ch. 10, Ch. 29
- Single source of truth Ch. 13
- Single-writer registrydefinition of: Ch. 14
- Sizing the leapdefinition of: Ch. 22
- Skill (soft mechanism)definition of: Ch. 6
- SLO / SLI Preface, Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 7
- smell (code smell) Ch. 20, Ch. 21, Ch. 29, Conclusion
- Smoke test Ch. 27
- soft / hard enforcement Ch. 7, Ch. 10, Ch. 24, Implications for Software Engineering
- Soft vs. hard governancedefinition of: Ch. 24
- Software engineeringdefinition of: Ch. 6
- Specification-driven developmentdefinition of: Ch. 8
- Staged deploy Appendix B - 3, Appendix C
- Starry Night (diffusion example) Ch. 23
- State machinedefinition of: Ch. 14
- State-machine coverage Implications for Software Engineering
- Structureddefinition of: Ch. 6
- success metric / rubric Ch. 3, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 20
- Supervised autonomydefinition of: Ch. 1
- Synchronization modeldefinition of: Ch. 14
- SysML (Systems Modeling Language) Ch. 12, Ch. 18
T
- teetering tower of governance Ch. 21
- Temporal logicdefinition of: Ch. 14
- temporal logic (LTL) Ch. 7, Ch. 14
- test-onion Appendix C
- Tests for agent failure modesdefinition of: Ch. 24
- The 4+1 viewsdefinition of: Ch. 12
- the agent Ch. 17, Ch. 21, The Book's Language, Preface
- The agent stackdefinition of: Ch. 6
- The agentic harnessdefinition of: Ch. 6
- The Alignment Thesisdefinition of: Preface
- The autonomy amplifierdefinition of: Ch. 24
- The broken cost estimatordefinition of: Ch. 24
- The context windowdefinition of: Ch. 6
- The design-pattern formdefinition of: Preface
- The Development viewdefinition of: Ch. 15
- The diffusion analogydefinition of: Ch. 23
- The drift caveatdefinition of: Ch. 7
- The drift gatedefinition of: Ch. 12
- The engineer's seatdefinition of: Ch. 5
- The engineered agent loopdefinition of: Ch. 3
- The engineering environmentdefinition of: Ch. 6
- The engineering substratedefinition of: Ch. 4
- The fidelity validatordefinition of: Ch. 2
- The fitness functiondefinition of: Ch. 20
- The fleetdefinition of: Preface
- The foundation modeldefinition of: Ch. 6
- The gatedefinition of: Ch. 8
- The governance cataloguedefinition of: Ch. 21
- The governed environmentdefinition of: Ch. 8
- The lexicondefinition of: Ch. 21
- The lifecycle phasesdefinition of: Ch. 5
- The Logical viewdefinition of: Ch. 13
- The model zoodefinition of: Ch. 12
- The Modeling Thesisdefinition of: Preface
- The novelty axisdefinition of: Ch. 23
- The per-model templatedefinition of: Ch. 12
- The Physical viewdefinition of: Ch. 16
- The pre-canned briefdefinition of: Ch. 9
- The printer metaphordefinition of: Ch. 1
- The Process viewdefinition of: Ch. 14
- The provenance layerdefinition of: Ch. 2
- The residual (goals no mechanism reaches; stays-human)definition of: Ch. 8
- The right level of enforcementdefinition of: Ch. 7
- The Scenarios viewdefinition of: Ch. 17
- The scope of modelingdefinition of: Ch. 18
- The search spacedefinition of: Ch. 3examples of: Ch. 23
- The semantic gapdefinition of: Ch. 7examples of: Ch. 7
- The success metricdefinition of: Ch. 3
- The support ratiodefinition of: Ch. 27
- The teetering towerdefinition of: Ch. 21
- The validatordefinition of: Ch. 8
- Three ways to run an agentdefinition of: Ch. 24
- TLA / model checking Ch. 7, Ch. 12, Ch. 14, Ch. 17
- tombstone Ch. 3, Ch. 17, Ch. 21, Appendix A - 4
- Tool (deterministic action)definition of: Ch. 6
- Top-down refinementdefinition of: Ch. 20
- Toyota Production System (lean production) Ch. 5
- Traceabilitydefinition of: Ch. 12
- traceability (quality case) Ch. 12, Appendix A - 2, The Book's Language, List of Figures and Tables
- Training-data biasdefinition of: Ch. 23
- Transformationdefinition of: Ch. 22examples of: Ch. 28
- transformation (input→output) Ch. 22, List of Figures and Tables, Ch. 7, Ch. 12
- Typed seam Ch. 21, Appendix A - 1, Appendix A - 3, Appendix B - 12
U
- UML (Unified Modeling Language) Ch. 7, Ch. 18
- user journey Ch. 7, Ch. 17, Ch. 19
- User-journey modeldefinition of: Ch. 17
V
- Validator Appendix A - 1, The Book's Language, Preface, Ch. 2
- Velocity exposes the dangerdefinition of: Ch. 24
- Vibe-coding vs. engineeringdefinition of: Ch. 24
W
- WCAG / conformance Appendix C, Ch. 7, Ch. 10, Ch. 13
- Whose fault is a bad builddefinition of: Ch. 1examples of: Ch. 1
- Worktree Ch. 3, Ch. 27, Implications for Software Engineering, Appendix A - 4
© James C. Davis, 2026–present