READ

acf.glossary.define

Canonical definition of an ACF® vocabulary term — one word or acronym in, one signed definition + its connections to the rest of the doctrine (principles, fiches) out.

→Tip

Read tool over the official glossary. No inference, no rewording — the returned definition is the verbatim glossary entry, with its doctrine hash and cross-references. Use it when a term must be cited as-is in a filing, board memo or thesis.

When to use

Use this tool when governance vocabulary turns ambiguous: what is a DDAO? What does Decision Sovereignty exactly cover? When does an agent transition from N1 to N2? Instead of improvising a definition (which will drift between two documents), the tool returns the canonical signed version — the same text you will find in the ACF® white paper and in the fiches.

The value is not the definition alone: it is the cross-references. Each entry points at the ACF® principles it activates and the methodological cards that operationalise it. The glossary is the shortest entry-point into the rest of the doctrine.

Input parameters

Two fields. Lookup is case-insensitive and matches either the short term (“DDAO”) or its expansion (“Délégué à la Décision Agentique Officielle”) indifferently.

termstring (1-80)required

Term or acronym to define. Examples: “DDAO”, “Decision Sovereignty”, “N2”, “kill switch”, “mandate”.

locale"en" | "fr"default: "en"

Language of the definition. If the requested version does not exist, the tool falls back to the canonical version and signals it via served_locale.

Output schema

A flat object: definition + connections + signed footer.

termstring

The exact term as indexed in the glossary (canonical casing).

expansionstring?

Expansion of the acronym when the term is an initialism. Absent otherwise.

definitionstring

The canonical definition. Verbatim text from the glossary — no rewording.

related{ principles: string[], fiches: string[] }

Cross-references: codes of the ACF® principles (P1-P7) and methodological cards (ACF-00 to ACF-16) tied to the term.

served_locale"en" | "fr"

Locale actually served. Differs from the input parameter if a fallback was triggered.

Example call

Defining the term “DDAO” before citing it in a governance filing:

glossary-define.tstypescript

import { Client } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/index.js";
import { StdioClientTransport } from "@modelcontextprotocol/sdk/client/stdio.js";

const transport = new StdioClientTransport({
  command: "npx",
  args: ["-y", "acf-mcp"],
});
const client = new Client({ name: "demo", version: "1.0" }, {});
await client.connect(transport);

const result = await client.callTool({
  name: "acf.glossary.define",
  arguments: {
    term: "DDAO",
    locale: "en",
  },
});

console.log(JSON.stringify(result.content, null, 2));

Response

response.jsonjson

{
  "term": "DDAO",
  "expansion": "Délégué à la Décision Agentique Officielle",
  "definition": "Named accountable officer for an autonomous agent's mandate. The DDAO owns the agent's go/no-go, the kill-switch design, the escalation thresholds, and the periodic mandate review. Cannot be a function — must be a named individual with documented authority and a documented backup.",
  "related": {
    "principles": ["P3", "P5"],
    "fiches": ["ACF-04", "ACF-06", "ACF-12"]
  },
  "served_locale": "en",
  "doctrine_version": "ACF framework v1.0 / rules 2026-06",
  "doctrine_hash": "sha256:bf0b6d8e4731ebdc58f6d6338702c5b74af47874cf0ad3dc958cde5c5b30b9dc",
  "doctrine_signature": "ed25519:…",
  "doctrine_archive_url": "https://acfstandard.io/doctrine/v1.0/archive.json",
  "generated_at": "2026-06-14T11:47:22.318Z",
  "disclaimer": "Canonical ACF® definition — for governance and academic use. Not legal advice."
}

Common errors

GlossaryEntryNotFound — the requested term does not exist in the glossary. Try a variant (“DDAO” rather than “Agentic Decision Officer”) or use acf.search to identify the canonical term.
InputTooLong — the term field exceeds 80 characters. The tool looks up a term, not a sentence — shorten it.
DoctrineSnapshotMismatch — the requested doctrine_hash is not loaded. Update acf-mcp or point at the archived version.

acf.search — find the canonical term when the exact label is unknown.
acf.fiche.lookup — read in full the methodological cards listed in related.fiches.
acf.cite — produce a formatted academic citation to reuse the definition in a document.