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The big picture

Alike keeps a world model: a shared record of your team’s work. It contains items such as tasks, decisions, projects, documents, and people. Your coding sessions add to it. Your connected tools, for example GitHub, Linear, and Slack, add to it too. Your agents read from it.

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Glossary

One record in Alike, for example a task, a decision, or a person. The tools and the web app call items “entities”. Each item has an ID in the form urn:alike:<type>:<id>, for example urn:alike:task:3f9c…. See Item types.
The name of a piece of work outside Alike: a git branch, a GitHub pull request, or a Linear issue. Sessions with the same anchor link to the same work item.
A task, project, or decision that work happens on. Alike links each agent session to a work item, usually by the git branch, the pull request, or the issue.
A note that says “an agent works on this item now”. It becomes idle after 5 minutes without activity.
One coding tool that acts for you, for example Claude Code or Cursor. Alike shows one agent for each tool that you use.
One run of an agent, from start to end. Alike keeps the raw record private to you. It also writes a short summary, which is an item of type agent_session with an ID like urn:alike:agent_session:3f9c…. Your agent can find it by title and read it, like any item. Your sharing level decides who in your workspace sees the summary. A session is live while it has activity in the last 5 minutes.
A choice with its reason. Alike gives decisions to later sessions on the same code. See Decisions.
The context that your agent gets at the start of a session: the work item, decisions, related work, live sessions, and questions for you.
Your view of the day: your plan, the items that wait for your review, and requests from teammates. It is on the Briefing page, and your agent gets it with get_briefing. It is not the same as the brief.
A short reference to an item that Alike adds to a session. It is a lead for the agent to read, not an instruction.
An item that Alike found by itself is not confirmed until a person confirms it. In your agent’s context, confirmed items carry the mark (confirmed).
The group of people who share context in Alike, usually a company or a team. People outside your workspace never see your data.
A person in your workspace. You see only what their sharing level shows.
A setting that decides who in your workspace sees each type of item. The default for builders is High Sharing. See Who sees what.
The people that you choose to see more of your items. You can use it in your sharing level.
Small commands that your agent runs at points in a session. Alike’s hooks send the session to Alike and add context back. See What leaves your machine.
If Alike is slow or cannot be reached, the hooks stop and your agent continues without Alike’s context. Alike does not stop your agent’s work.
An action that waits for your confirmation before Alike does it, for example an invitation. Your agent shows you the details first. Alike does the action only after you confirm.
The Model Context Protocol, a standard way for an agent to call outside tools. Alike’s MCP server gives your agent its tools. See MCP tools.
The one-time step that links a machine to your account. See Pair a machine.
The background upload of your agents’ saved session files. See Sessions and transcript capture.
A prompt that you send in a session after the first prompt. Analytics counts interventions to show how often you had to step in.