Glossary
Terms used in the documentation and in the GhostMap UI, defined in one place.
Anchor
A @ghost annotation written inside a line comment. There are three types: Point (with #name), Contextual (no #name, attaches to the nearby symbol), and Range (bounded by start and end).
Backpressure
GhostMap's scheduler mechanism that delays the start of a refresh by 200 ms when it detects fast tab switches (less than 150 ms between them). It avoids queueing analyses for files the user just passed through. Small files skip it automatically. See Performance.
Coalescer
Progressive scanner component that groups several batch publications into a single tree update every 250 ms. Prevents panel flicker during the analysis of large files.
Contextual Anchor
Anchor without #name. Attaches automatically to the closest symbol within the ownership radius. See Contextual Anchor.
Generation
Internal identifier that increments with every refresh request. GhostMap uses the generation to discard work whose result is already obsolete (for example, a refresh of file A when the user has already switched to file B).
Ghost Comments
Canonical name for the future "invisible" form of anchors in V2. Ghost information will stop living as text in the comment and will be shown via decorations and CodeLens, while the source stays clean. See Roadmap.
Ghost Context Graph
Long name for Ghost Graph: the graph of relations between files, symbols, and dependencies that will live in the Ghost Index v2.
Ghost Engine
Canonical name for the symbol-extraction stack. Three layers in order: LSP (language server) then Tree-sitter WASM then regex fallback. See Performance.
Ghost Graph
Short form of "Ghost Context Graph". Visualization of the relations stored in the Ghost Index v2. See Roadmap.
Ghost Index
Persistent cache GhostMap keeps per workspace in .ghostmap/ghostmap.json. In V1 it is per-document. In V2 it will be per-workspace (Ghost Index v2). See Local State.
Ghost Project Index
Synonym for Ghost Index v2: the persistent workspace-level index that will replace the per-file cache of V1.
Ghost Threads
Canonical name for the per-code-block discussions planned for V2 Enterprise. Every function, class, or range can have its own thread, with role assignment and a bridge to Slack.
Ghost Tree
The tree GhostMap shows in the side panel: classes, interfaces, functions, methods, anchors. Built from the Ghost Engine output.
Ghost Watcher
Component planned for V2: filesystem watcher that keeps the Ghost Index v2 incrementally up to date on create, delete, rename, or modify.
Language ID
VS Code's internal identifier for the language of the active file. It appears in the status bar, lower right corner. GhostMap uses it to decide which extraction patterns apply.
LSP
Language Server Protocol. The spec language servers (TypeScript Server, Pyright, etc.) use to expose code information. GhostMap queries the active language's LSP as the first layer of the Ghost Engine.
Ownership Radius
Number of lines around a Contextual Anchor where GhostMap looks for a symbol to attach the metadata to. Default: 5. Configurable via ghostmap.ownershipRadius. See Ownership Radius.
Point Anchor
Anchor with #name but no start/end. Creates its own node in the tree with its own identity. Also called Semantic Anchor. See Semantic Anchor.
Progressive Scanner
Extraction engine for large files. Processes the file in 4,000-line batches and publishes the first 50 symbols before finishing. Yields control to the event loop between batches via setImmediate so the editor stays responsive. See Performance.
Range Anchor
Anchor with #name start ... end that bounds a section of code. Creates a node in the tree containing all symbols inside the region. See Range Anchor.
Refresh
Operation that recomputes the tree for the active document. Triggered by a tab switch, a file edit, or the manual GhostMap: Refresh command.
Scheduler
Component that manages the refresh queue. Keeps at most one in-flight and one queued per file. Spam clicks collapse to the "last".
Semantic Anchor
Another name for Point Anchor (anchor with #name). Called "semantic" because it has its own identity and is referenceable as a tree node.
Snapshot
A Ghost Index entry that captures the extraction state of a file: tree, anchors, content fingerprint, capture timestamp. See Local State.
Stale-cache
State in which GhostMap is showing a prior snapshot (badge [cached]) while validating or re-extracting the file. If the fingerprint does not match, it switches to [stale-cache]. Resolves only when the fresh refresh completes.
Status badge
Bracketed indicator in the GhostMap panel title: [loading], [cached], [stale-cache], [skipped], [no items], [deferred], [discarded:...]. Tells you exactly what state extraction is in.
Symbol
Class, interface, struct, enum, method, function, constructor, or anchor that shows up as a node in the Ghost Tree. What counts as a Symbol is decided by the Symbol Validity Gate.
Symbol Validity Gate
Filter that decides which identifiers are accepted as a Symbol. Rejects 1 to 2 letter names, language reserved words, and noisy patterns (fn, cb, id, etc.). See Symbol Validity Gate.
Watchdog
Mechanism that detects if the tree for the active file has not updated within 1 second after a tab switch, and fires a recovery refresh. Only fires when no refresh is in flight for that generation. See Performance.
WASM
WebAssembly. Portable binary format. GhostMap packs 19 Tree-sitter grammars compiled to WASM inside the extension. They are static code with no network capability.