Quick-reference glossary for the BPM/Agent Stack specification. For comprehensive definitions with full context, “Distinguished from” sections, and cross-references, see Clause 4 — Terms and Definitions in the specification. For Intent Stack terminology, see the Intent Stack glossary.

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Foundational

BPM (Business Process Management) — The professional discipline of discovering, analyzing, designing, implementing, monitoring, and improving business processes. Codified in the ABPMP BPM CBOK v4.0.

BPM/Agent Stack — This specification — execution governance for AI agent architectures. Three concerns: Orchestration, Integration, Execution.

Three-Layer Architecture — Constitutional AI (substrate) → Intent Stack (governance context) → BPM/Agent Stack (execution governance). Seven governance concerns across two companion specifications plus the Constitutional AI foundation.

Execution Governance — Per-activity and per-process controls specifying how authorized work gets done: process structure, responsibility assignments, decision logic, exception handling, audit trail.

Orthogonality — The design property that the Intent Stack and BPM/Agent Stack neither duplicate nor complicate each other. Governance context and execution structure are independent concerns.

Seven Governance Concerns — Four governance context concerns (Intent Stack: Intent Discovery, Intent Formalization, Specification, Runtime Alignment) plus three execution governance concerns (BPM/Agent Stack: Orchestration, Integration, Execution).

Standards and Bodies of Knowledge

ABPMP BPM CBOK — The Association of Business Process Management Professionals’ Common Body of Knowledge (v4.0). Primary professional authority for BPM, organized into nine Knowledge Areas.

BPMN 2.0 — Business Process Model and Notation (OMG standard). Standardized notation for process modeling with defined semantics for activities, gateways, events, swimlanes, and flows.

DMN 1.0 — Decision Model and Notation (OMG standard). Framework for modeling decisions separately from process flow using decision tables with defined hit policies.

CMMN 1.0 — Case Management Model and Notation (OMG standard). Models adaptive, knowledge-worker-driven work. Maps to agent-style dynamic execution vs. BPMN’s structured workflows.

ISO 31000 — International standard for risk management. Provides the framework for the Risk attribute family in the governed activity model.

The Activity Model

Activity — The fundamental unit of work in a process model. In BPMN 2.0, activities have defined inputs, outputs, performers, and types.

Governed Activity — An activity carrying all 21 BPM/Agent Stack governance attributes (Role, Data Lineage, Performance, Risk, plus Governance and Documentation).

Task Types — BPMN 2.0 activity types: User Task (human action), Service Task (automated execution), Business Rule Task (deterministic decision logic), Script Task (code execution), Send Task (dispatch message), Receive Task (await message), Manual Task (physical-world action).

Subprocess — A nested process model with its own governance interface. Inherits all Boundary constraints from parent; may add constraints but never relax them.

Responsibility and Data Lineage

RACI — Responsibility assignment matrix: Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome — always human in governed agent deployment), Consulted (provides input), Informed (notified of outcome).

SIPOC — Data lineage framework from Lean/Six Sigma: Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers. Provides the Data Lineage attribute family for governed activities.

Process Structure

Gateway — A process element controlling branching and merging. Types: Exclusive (XOR — one path), Parallel (AND — all paths), Inclusive (OR — one or more paths), Event-Based (waits for events).

Swimlane (Pool and Lane) — BPMN responsibility assignment: Pools separate participants, Lanes subdivide within a participant.

Sequence Flow — Execution ordering within a participant. Message Flow — Communication between participants with typed payloads.

Governed Decomposition — Breaking processes into subprocesses, each with its own governance interface.

Events and Exception Handling

Events (BPMN) — Process occurrences with defined handling: Timer (scheduled), Error (failure), Escalation (elevation to higher authority), Signal (broadcast), Message (point-to-point), Compensation (rollback).

Structured Exception Handling — Typed exceptions with defined responses, replacing generic retry loops. Each failure type has its own handler.

Decision Governance

Decision Table (DMN) — Structured decision logic with inputs, outputs, and rules. Deterministic: same inputs produce same decision every time.

Hit Policy — How a decision table resolves multi-match: UNIQUE (one match), FIRST (priority order), ANY (same output), COLLECT (all outputs), PRIORITY (highest wins), RULE ORDER (in order).

Deterministic/Probabilistic Separation — Decisions requiring reproducibility use DMN decision tables; decisions requiring adaptive judgment use LLM inference. The right mechanism for the right kind of decision.

Performance and Risk

Value Stream Mapping — Lean technique measuring: Cost, Work Time, Wait Time, Total Time, and Value-Add per activity.

ISO 31000 Risk Attributes — Per-activity Risk (failure modes, likelihood, severity, controls) and Problems (active issues).

Governance Infrastructure

Controlled Vocabulary — Authorized terms with definitions for semantic consistency across agents.

Policy Linkage — Governance documents linked to process elements at point of execution.

Audit Trail — Complete, append-only history of governance-critical events with attribution.

Agent Deployment Patterns

Agent Species — Empirically observed deployment patterns classified by governance configuration: Coding Harness (Individual/Project-Scale), Dark Factory, Auto Research, Orchestration Framework.

Governance Complexity Gradient — BPM/Agent Stack contribution scales with governance interface count — from minimal (individual harness) to maximum (orchestration framework).

Architecture and Connection

Stitching Mechanism — Bidirectional interface connecting Intent Stack governance context to BPM/Agent Stack execution structure. Primary joint: Key Tasks at Intent Stack L2.

Monotonic Accumulation — Boundaries can only be added, never removed, through governance interfaces.

Holdout Principle — Acceptance criteria hidden from the implementing agent to prevent optimization for evaluation rather than genuine compliance.

Evidence Return Path — Structured evidence from execution flowing to Intent Stack L1 for alignment assessment.

Context, Memory, and Intent

Context — Information available at inference time. The vehicle for intent communication, not intent itself.

Memory — Mechanism for persistence across sessions. Not governance — governed by separate governance infrastructure.

Intent — The content of governance. Five primitives, four sources. Not “what the user wants.” See the Intent Stack glossary.