Glossary: Agentic Work A-Z

This glossary defines key terms used throughout the Dailybot Academy and in the broader world of agentic work and async collaboration. Terms are organized alphabetically. Where relevant, links point to deeper Academy articles.

A

Agent

A software program that performs tasks autonomously on behalf of a human. In the context of Dailybot, “agent” typically refers to a coding agent — an AI assistant like Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, or Devin that writes code, runs tests, and submits work with varying degrees of independence.

Agent visibility

A periodic signal sent by an autonomous agent to confirm it is still active and functioning. Dailybot uses heartbeats to monitor agent health — if heartbeats stop arriving, the system alerts the team. Similar to uptime monitoring for servers, but for AI workers.

Agentic era

The current shift in software development where AI agents work alongside human developers as semi-autonomous team members. The agentic era requires new tools and workflows for visibility, coordination, and accountability across human and machine contributors.

Async standup

A standup meeting conducted asynchronously through a tool like Dailybot instead of a live video or in-person meeting. Team members answer standup questions on their own schedule within a response window, and results are collected into a summary.

B

Blocker

Any issue that prevents work from progressing — a missing approval, an unresolved dependency, a broken environment, or a waiting-on-someone situation. Dailybot can detect blockers automatically through keyword analysis of check-in responses.

Blocker detection

An automated workflow that identifies blockers mentioned in check-in responses using keyword matching, sentiment analysis, or explicit flags. Once detected, the system can trigger follow-up questions, notifications, and escalation rules.

C

Check-in

A scheduled, recurring prompt sent to team members through their chat platform. Check-ins collect structured responses to predefined questions — standups, retrospectives, mood tracking, and planning are common check-in types.

Coding agent

An AI assistant specifically designed to write, review, and modify code. Examples include Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Aider, Devin, and OpenHands. Dailybot can collect progress reports from coding agents and display them alongside human check-ins.

Conditional follow-up

A question that appears in a check-in only when a specific condition is met — for example, a follow-up question about blocker details that triggers only when the previous answer mentions being blocked. Enables branching logic in check-in flows.

Context window

The amount of text (measured in tokens) that an AI model can process in a single interaction. Relevant when coding agents work on large codebases — a larger context window means the agent can consider more code at once.

D

Dashboard

The central Dailybot interface where managers view team feeds, analytics, check-in responses, and system settings. In v3, the dashboard is customizable with configurable widgets.

E

Escalation rule

An automation that notifies additional people when an issue remains unresolved past a defined time threshold. For example, if a blocker is not cleared within 24 hours, escalate to the team lead.

F

Form

A one-time or on-demand data collection tool in Dailybot. Unlike check-ins (which are scheduled and recurring), forms are triggered by a link, a command, or a workflow event. Used for incident intake, feedback collection, and ad-hoc surveys.

H

Human-in-the-loop

A workflow design pattern where an AI agent works autonomously but pauses at critical decision points for human review and approval. Ensures that high-stakes actions — deployments, data deletions, customer communications — have human oversight.

Hybrid feed

A unified timeline in Dailybot that shows both human check-in responses and coding agent progress reports. Gives managers a single view of all team activity, regardless of whether the contributor is human or AI.

I

Integration

A connection between Dailybot and an external tool or platform. Dailybot integrates with chat platforms (Slack, Teams, Discord, Google Chat), project management tools, CI/CD pipelines, and more.

K

Kudos

A peer recognition feature in Dailybot. Team members send kudos to acknowledge contributions, celebrate wins, and reinforce team values. Kudos can be tied to specific company values and tracked in analytics.

M

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

An open protocol that allows AI models and tools to communicate in a standardized way. Dailybot v3 supports MCP, enabling coding agents to connect natively and interact with Dailybot’s capabilities programmatically.

Mood tracking

A check-in feature that collects team sentiment data — typically a numeric score or emoji response. Tracked over time, mood data reveals trends in team health and engagement.

P

Piggybacked delivery

A technique where Dailybot attaches lightweight data collection to an existing interaction rather than creating a separate touchpoint. Adding a mood question to the end of a standup is piggybacked delivery — it collects sentiment data without a separate survey.

Proactive intelligence

A Dailybot v3 feature that surfaces insights and alerts before you ask. Instead of requiring managers to check dashboards, the system detects patterns (sentiment drops, blocker trends, agent anomalies) and pushes notifications proactively.

Pulse check

A short, frequent check-in designed to measure team sentiment or engagement. Typically one or two questions, run daily or weekly, focused on how people feel rather than what they accomplished.

R

Response window

The time period during which team members can answer a check-in. For example, a check-in scheduled at 9:00 AM with a 4-hour response window closes at 1:00 PM. After the window closes, late responses may still be accepted but are flagged.

S

Smart summary

An AI-generated synthesis of check-in responses in Dailybot v3. Instead of listing each person’s answers individually, smart summaries identify themes, highlight blockers, and surface trends across the team.

T

Template

A pre-built, reusable workflow configuration in Dailybot. Templates include check-in questions, schedules, conditions, and routing rules. Install a template to get a proven workflow running quickly, then customize it to fit your team.

V

Visibility collapse

The loss of awareness about what team members (human and AI) are actually doing. Common in remote and async teams where there is no shared physical space. Dailybot addresses visibility collapse by aggregating updates from all contributors into a central feed.

W

Webhook

An HTTP callback triggered by an event in Dailybot. When something happens (check-in completed, blocker detected, mood threshold crossed), Dailybot sends a POST request to your registered URL with structured event data.

Workflow

An automated sequence of actions in Dailybot — triggers, conditions, and responses chained together. Workflows power features like blocker detection with escalation, conditional follow-ups, and cross-tool integrations.