Help/Help

Glossary

The words Orbit uses, in plain English, with a link to the page that tells you more.

Orbs and your Moon

Orb: One AI chat in Orbit, working on one job, on Claude, Codex or Grok. Start one with New Orb. See Start a new Orb.
Moon: Your lead Orb and chief of staff: always on, it checks in on your work, nudges you, briefs you and hands work to your other Orbs. You name it yourself. See What the Moon does.
Lead Orb: Your Moon is your lead Orb across everything. Each project can also have a lead: the chat that runs that project as its manager. See Lead Orbs and sub-threads.
Specialist: Any other chat in a project that has a lead. It does the piece of work it's given and reports back to the lead.
Sub-thread: A new chat that a chat starts to do one self-contained part of its work. It sits nested under its parent and reports back when it's done.
Group chat: A chat with two or three models in it. Each one answers every message, in turn.
Check-in: Your Moon looking over your chats, Board, calendar and messages on a timer, and acting on what it finds.
Nudge: A short message from your Moon when something needs you, on your computer and phone, once per thing.
Quiet hours: The times your Moon doesn't check in or nudge you. Set in Settings, in the section with your Moon's name.
Rules: What your Moon may do on its own, what it asks first and what it hands to you. See Name, colour and rules.
Routine and reminder: Scheduled jobs your Moon runs: a routine is a job it does and reports back on, a reminder is a message it sends you at a time. See Scheduled jobs and nudges.
Briefing: Your Moon's morning and evening summary of your day, on Home and as a phone notification. See Briefings.
Desktop Moon: Your Moon floating above your other apps, to message with a click. ⌥⌘O hides and shows it. See The Moon on your desktop.
The Moon's computer: A Linux desktop with Google Chrome in a virtual machine on your Mac, where your Moon works on its own. Mac only. See The Moon's computer.
Tidy-up: Your Moon naming and nesting messy threads, and committing finished work in quiet repos, with an Undo on every change. See Tidy-up and Undo.

Working in a chat

Send any time: Pressing Enter while an Orb works: it takes your message in at its next step. On Grok and group chats the message waits, with an Interrupt link. See Send any time.
Interrupt: The link under a waiting message that stops the Orb now and has it read your message straight away.
Side question: A question about a chat that doesn't interrupt it or join it. ⌘;. See Side questions.
Permissions: How much Orbs ask before they act: Read only, Plan, Auto or Full access, for every chat. See Permissions and plan mode.
Plan mode: The Plan permission level: an Orb plans first and you approve the plan with one click (Go ahead) before anything runs.
Approval card: The card an Orb shows when it wants your OK to run something, with Decline, Allow for this chat and Allow.
Compact: Summarising a long chat so far to free up the model's context, from the context meter or /compact.
Slash command: A command or skill you run by typing / in the message box. See Slash commands and skills.
Skill: A set of instructions a model loads when it's relevant, like your house style or a pre-launch checklist. Orbit keeps one library for every model.
Plugin: An add-on for Claude or Codex that you install and turn on or off in Skills & plugins. See Skills and plugins.
Connector: A link to another service, such as Notion, Linear or Stripe, that every Orb and your Moon can use. Connectors are under Orbit plugins in Skills & plugins. See Connectors.
Secret box: The hidden box on an approval card where you add a key, token or password an Orb needs. The model never sees the value. See Secret box.
Cloud fallback: Chats you choose, and your Moon, carrying on in the cloud on your own plans while your computer sleeps or is off, then coming back. See Cloud fallback.

Places in Orbit

Home: Your dashboard of widgets and blocks, arranged how you like. See Home and widgets.
Project: One piece of work: a card on the Board with its Orbs, tasks, docs, files and people, usually tied to a folder on your computer. See Projects and folders.
Board: Your Projects, Leads and People, each as a database with tables, boards and other views. See The Board.
Planner: Your calendar and time blocks: Day, 3 days, Week and Month. See Planner.
My Work: Everything assigned to you, where you've been @mentioned, and what's overdue. See Tasks and My Work.
Workload: How much each person on your team has on this week. See Workload.
Inbox: Your email and messages in one place, sorted by what needs you. See Inbox.
Waiting on you: Every approval and question your Orbs have for you, in one list. See Waiting on you.
Chat: Chat between people (called Team Chat before 0.1.15): spaces, channels and direct messages. Not the same as your Orbs, which are your AI chats. See Chat.
Transcripts: Calls Orbit has transcribed on your Mac or PC, with a summary and actions. See Transcripts.
Docs: Pages and databases you write and edit, on your own or with teammates. See Docs and databases.
Journal: Your private journal, encrypted on your computer. Your Moon can only read it if you allow it. See Journal.
Block: A small app an Orb builds for you, like a tracker or a calculator. Blocks sit in the rail and can go on Home. See Make a block.
Block Store: Where you find blocks other people have published, add them, and publish your own. See Block Store.
⌘K: One box to search everything, open any page, make something or ask your Moon. See Search and ⌘K.
Rail: The strip of buttons down the left of the window. See A tour of the window.

Updated 24 October 2026 · Orbit 0.1.15