> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.alterscope.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Glossary

> Plain-language definitions of the terms used across the Alterscope docs.

Short definitions for the terms and acronyms used throughout these docs. Where a concept has a deeper treatment, the entry links to it.

## Platform terms

**Agentic-first** — Every response carries a machine-readable [`_agentic`](/develop/concepts/response-envelope) block (freshness, confidence, quality gate) so an automated consumer can decide whether to act on the data without a human in the loop. See [Agentic envelope](/develop/concepts/agentic-envelope).

**Archive-node-deep** — Data sourced from a full Ethereum archive node, which retains historical state at every block. This makes block-level historical queries — a price, peg, or liquidity value at a specific past block — possible, rather than just the latest value.

**Quality gate** — The `pass` / `warn` / `fail` verdict in the agentic envelope that says whether a response is fit for unsupervised automated use. See [Freshness & staleness](/develop/concepts/freshness-and-staleness).

**Freshness** — How recent a response's underlying data is (`realtime` / `fresh` / `stale` / `unknown`), reported as a first-class field. See [Freshness & staleness](/develop/concepts/freshness-and-staleness).

## DeFi & risk terms

**Oracle classification** — Categorizing a price feed by how it is sourced and updated (and its staleness state), so consumers know how to trust it. See [Oracle classification](/trust/methodology/oracle-classification).

**Curator** — The party that manages a vault's strategy and risk parameters (which markets it lends into, caps, fees). Curator track records are a core Alterscope dataset.

**Vault** — A managed pool of deposits (e.g. a MetaMorpho vault) that allocates across underlying lending markets according to its curator's strategy.

**Factor** — An attributable component of risk or return. Alterscope decomposes a position's risk into factors so you can see what drives it. See [Risk factors](/trust/methodology/risk-factors).

**Regime** — A classification of the current market environment (e.g. calm vs. stressed). See [Graph intelligence](/trust/methodology/graph-intelligence) and the market-regime endpoints.

**Cascade** — Contagion analysis: how a shock to one asset or protocol could propagate to others through the knowledge graph. See [Graph intelligence](/trust/methodology/graph-intelligence).

**VaR (Value at Risk)** — An estimate of the loss a position could face over a horizon at a given confidence level. Alterscope computes it via Monte-Carlo simulation. See [VaR & Monte Carlo](/trust/methodology/var-and-monte-carlo).

**DSR (Dynamic Stability Ratio)** — An Alterscope measure of how stable a position or market is under stress. See [VaR & Monte Carlo](/trust/methodology/var-and-monte-carlo).

**HRP (Hierarchical Risk Parity)** — A portfolio-construction method that allocates risk across clustered assets rather than relying on a single covariance inversion. See [Risk factors](/trust/methodology/risk-factors).

<Note>
  The methodology pages linked above explain how each measure is computed and where its limits are. If a term used elsewhere in the docs is missing here, it's worth filing — these definitions are meant to cover the jargon you'll actually encounter.
</Note>