Glossary

Key terms and concepts in the Ants at Work colony

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Core Concepts

Ant

A digital agent in the colony that follows simple rules leading to emergent behavior. Ants communicate through pheromones, not direct messages.

Related: Colony Caste Stigmergy

Colony

A group of ants working together through stigmergy. The top-level organizational unit that coordinates distributed intelligence.

Related: Ant Queen Mission

Stigmergy

Coordination through environmental modification. Ants communicate by depositing and sensing pheromones rather than direct messaging.

Related: Pheromone Trail Emergence

Emergence

Complex behavior arising from simple rules. The colony is intelligent; individual ants are not. Intelligence emerges from collective behavior.

Pheromone

A signal deposited on edges in the graph. Higher pheromone levels make paths more attractive to other ants.

Ant Castes

Caste

A specialized role for ants. Each caste has different pheromone sensitivity and behavior patterns.

Scout

An ant caste with low pheromone sensitivity (0.3). Scouts explore new paths and discover unknown territory.

Related: Caste Harvester Exploration

Harvester

An ant caste with high pheromone sensitivity (0.9). Harvesters exploit known, proven paths.

Related: Caste Scout Exploitation

Relay

An ant caste with medium pheromone sensitivity. Relays spread information between different regions of the colony.

Related: Caste Pheromone Region

Hybrid

An ant caste with adaptive pheromone sensitivity. Hybrids switch between exploration and exploitation based on context.

Related: Caste Scout Harvester

Hunter

Specialized ants for the Hunt BTC mission. Includes Tame and Wild varieties that work together using Pollard's Kangaroo algorithm.

Navigation & Paths

STAN

Stigmergic A* Navigation. The core pathfinding algorithm that combines A* search with pheromone-based guidance.

Effective Cost

The STAN formula: base_weight / (1 + pheromone x sensitivity). Lower effective cost makes edges more attractive.

Related: STAN Pheromone Edge

Edge

A connection between nodes in the graph. Edges carry pheromone levels and base weights.

Related: Node Trail Pheromone

Node

A point in the graph. Can represent a concept, region, market state, or computational position.

Related: Edge Graph Region

Trail

A sequence of edges with elevated pheromone levels. Trails represent discovered paths through the problem space.

Related: Pheromone Superhighway Edge

Superhighway

An edge with pheromone level greater than 20. Represents crystallized, proven knowledge that persists.

Pheromone Dynamics

Deposit

The act of leaving pheromone on an edge after successful traversal. Reinforces good paths.

Related: Pheromone Decay Trail

Decay

The gradual evaporation of pheromone over time. Prevents lock-in to suboptimal paths and allows adaptation.

Related: Pheromone Deposit Exploration

Pheromone Sensitivity

How strongly an ant responds to pheromone (0.0-1.0). Low sensitivity favors exploration; high sensitivity favors exploitation.

Related: Caste Scout Harvester STAN

Crystallization

When temporary pheromone patterns become permanent knowledge. Superhighways and patterns are crystallized learnings.

Organization

Queen

The colony coordinator. Manages caste allocation, mission strategy, and overall colony health.

Related: Colony Caste Mission

Mission

A specific problem the colony is solving. Examples include Hunt BTC (puzzle solving) and Trade (market analysis).

Related: Colony Group Objective

Group

An organizational container (Colony, Mission, Team). Provides isolation and permission boundaries.

Related: Colony Mission Role

Actor

An entity that can perform actions. Includes humans, AI agents, and system processes.

Related: Ant Agent Worker

ONE Ontology

The 6-dimension framework: Groups, Actors, Things, Connections, Events, Knowledge. The universal schema for all colony data.

Related: Group Actor TypeDB

Infrastructure

Gateway

The Cloudflare Worker API at api.ants-at-work.com. Provides fast coordination for distributed workers.

Related: Worker D1 API

TypeDB

The graph database that stores the colony's environment, events, and knowledge. Single source of truth.

Related: ONE Ontology Knowledge Schema

Worker

A distributed compute node running ants-worker. Contributes processing power to colony search.

Related: Gateway Token Hunter

Growth Gate

Security checkpoint limiting colony size. The colony must pass requirements before scaling up.

Related: Security Kill Switch Colony

Kill Switch

Emergency mechanism to halt colony operations if anomalies are detected. Armed at all times.

Related: Growth Gate Security Runaway

Hunt BTC Mission

Kangaroo Algorithm

Pollard's Kangaroo method for solving the discrete logarithm problem. Used in the Hunt BTC mission.

Tame Hunter

A hunter ant that starts from known points and walks forward deterministically. Part of the Kangaroo algorithm.

Wild Hunter

A hunter ant that starts from the target and walks forward. Collision with a Tame Hunter recovers the key.

Distinguished Point

A rare landmark in Pollard's Kangaroo algorithm. When both tame and wild kangaroos land on the same DP, collision is detected.

Collision

When a tame and wild kangaroo land on the same distinguished point. This allows recovery of the private key.

Region

A subdivision of the search space. Regions track pheromone levels and worker activity.

Related: Pheromone Worker Exploration

Genetics & Evolution

Genome

Heritable parameters that define ant behavior. Genomes can mutate during reproduction, enabling evolution.

Related: Fitness Mutation Evolution

Fitness

A measure of how well an ant's genome performs. High-fitness genomes reproduce; low-fitness ones die out.

Related: Genome Selection Evolution

Role

Permission level in the colony hierarchy: platform_owner > group_owner > operator > worker > viewer.

Related: Group Security Actor

Alphabetical Index

Lessons from Ants at Work