Tangle agent glossary
Short definitions of the terms used across the Tangle agent docs. Each links to the page that owns the detail.
AgentProfile
The whole agent written as data: instructions, model, skills, tools, MCP servers, permissions and connections. The profile says what the agent is, independent of where it runs. AgentProfiles.
Materialization
The step where Tangle turns a portable profile into the concrete configuration a coding agent runs: inline skills mounted in the agent’s skill directory, tools and permissions applied, files placed, credentials resolved at the execution boundary. You author the profile; the platform materializes it. AgentProfiles.
Coding agent
The command-line coding agent that runs a profile, such as Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode or Pi,
selected by the backend type. Run a coding agent.
Run target
Where a profile runs: in a sandbox, as a worker under a supervisor, or through inference routing alone. Where a Tangle agent runs.
Sandbox
An isolated Linux workspace with its own filesystem, processes, network policy, size and lifetime. Create, stop and delete.
Worker
A coding agent that a supervisor agent spawns and steers, in its own sandbox, under one shared token and iteration budget. agent-runtime.
Inference routing
Running a profile’s model and instructions through the Tangle Router with no sandbox and no coding-agent process. Where a Tangle agent runs.
Box custody
A secret delivered into the sandbox as an environment variable, where the agent process reads its real value. Secrets.
Proxy custody
A secret that stays with the egress proxy. The sandbox holds a placeholder; the proxy adds the real value only on requests the binding allows. How Tangle keeps credentials out of the agent.
Egress proxy
The proxy that runs beside each sandbox and carries its outbound traffic. It enforces the egress policy and performs credential substitution and masking. The agent’s user cannot read or reconfigure it. Network access.
Egress policy
The rule that decides which hosts a sandbox may reach: open, a strict allowlist, or blocked.
Network access.
Placeholder
The fake, per-sandbox stand-in a proxy-custody secret puts in the agent’s environment. It is not derived from the real value and authenticates nothing on its own. How Tangle keeps credentials out of the agent.
Grant
The issued, time-bounded authority that lets the proxy present a secret’s value on a request. It pins the secret’s identity and scope and expires on its own; you do not handle it directly. Secrets.
Scope
The hosts, methods and paths a proxy-custody credential may be sent to. A request outside the scope is refused before the value is added. Secrets.
Presentation
How the proxy sends a proxy-custody value: bearer, basic auth with a username, a named header,
or a query parameter. Secrets.
Connection
A Hub integration an agent may use, such as a connected Gmail, GitHub or Slack account, granted to a profile by connection id and capability. Connections.
Snapshot
A saved copy of a sandbox’s workspace that new sandboxes can start from. Snapshots and forks.
Provider
A package that runs an AgentProfile on one sandbox cloud, such as Tangle, E2B or Daytona, behind one contract. Run the same agent on E2B, Daytona and more.