---
title: One-vocabulary rule
order: 2
description: "Each concept gets one name, used everywhere: target, spell, charm, op. A second word for the same thing is a house dialect, and it costs every reader (and every agent) a lookup that never ends."
tags: [glossary, design-and-scope]
---

# One-vocabulary rule

Each concept gets one name, used everywhere: target, spell, charm, op. A second
word for the same thing is a house dialect, and it costs every reader (and every
agent) a lookup that never ends.

## Example

The CLI follows the rule: listing is always `ls`, never a second verb.

```sh
magus ls jobs
```

## Used in

<!-- BEGIN GLOSSARY USAGE (generated by glossary-usage-generate from the knowledge graph; edit the generator, not this list) -->

The knowledge graph holds no docs section or code type by this name outside the glossary.

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## See also

- [Design principles](../design.md)
- [Scope test](scope-test.md)